Downtown dynamo

Will Brady started working in restaurants—even if they were of the fast-food variety—at the age of 13. So, after he “failed out of college,” where he was seeking a degree in philosophy and the classics, the fallback was to find work in kitchens. Who could have predicted that work would pay such dividends?

Today, at 46 years old, Brady owns three of downtown Chico’s most bustling spots for food and drinks: The Banshee, B Street Public House and, the latest, Bill’s Towne Lounge. In fact, when Food Network star Guy Fieri brought his show Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives to town a few months ago, one of his stops was to The Banshee, where Brady made a couple of the house favorites: the Pho-Rench Dip Sandwich and Bahn Mi Tacos.

“He was very down-to-earth off-camera,” Brady said of Fieri. “We had drinks for a couple of hours one of the nights—he’s very likable.”

The path from McDonald’s to “Triple-D”—Fieri speak for his show—was far from straight, however. Brady moved back and forth from his hometown of Boston to places like Los Angeles, Chicago and even Dublin, Ireland. At first, he gained experience working in restaurants—under a number of James Beard Award winners, including Ed LaDue, who created the first pizza menus at California Pizza Kitchen and Wolfgang Puck’s Spago in L.A.

Then he started getting hired to help restaurateurs launch their own menus, spending three months here, three months there, working for room and board and enough cash to get him to the next place. When he finally was ready to settle down, he went back home and opened an Irish pub in Boston that was more pub than restaurant. Ultimately, though, “I got tired of breaking up fights,” he said.

So, almost on a whim, he followed one of his regular customers—Sebastian Tamarelle—to Chico, and they opened The Banshee together in 2007.

“I basically did what I did in Boston, here,” Brady said. The response was immense—the place is regularly full of patrons. It was so successful, in fact, that Brady’s initial plan was to open a string of Banshees across Northern California. He had no intention of staying in Chico over a decade. Something about the other communities he’d eyed for Banshee 2 or Banshee 3, however, just didn’t jibe with him.

“I decided to stick with Chico. Being present calmed me,” he said.

So, instead of multiple Banshees, Brady set out to create something different. A lengthy, frustrating battle over obtaining a liquor license for his second business—just around the corner from The Banshee on Broadway—was infuriating, but eventually he, Tamarelle and another partner opened B Street Oyster Bar in 2013.

“I started out with the idea of traveling,” Brady said. The Banshee was supposed to evoke the ambiance of Dublin or Boston; “with an oyster bar, I wanted it to feel like you were in Brooklyn or Venice.”

He realized early on that his plan for B Street was flawed. “People in Chico couldn’t afford to eat oysters every day,” he said. “We had to change.”

That’s part of what’s made Brady’s businesses successful—the ability to recognize when something isn’t working and change it rather than stubbornly trying to make it work. He dropped the “Oyster Bar” from B Street’s name and added “Public House.” It’s worked. At Bill’s Towne Lounge, which opened last fall, he’s still working out the menu, though the overall goal is 1960s-’70s L.A. The patio is set to open in a week or two, which will complete the construction phase.

Brady’s accomplishments haven’t gone unnoticed by those around him. At the Downtown Chico Business Association’s last annual meeting, he was presented with the Kudos Award “for economic development and capital investment in downtown Chico,” said Kathleen Rivard, DCBA administrative assistant. “To have three very separate, different, individual restaurants is amazing.”

During a recent interview inside Bill’s, Brady could barely sit still—he quietly chided a host who wasn’t greeting customers walking in the door; the music was boring, so he asked the bartender to liven it up.

Brady acknowledges he’s got a bit of a reputation for being loud and obnoxious. He’s calmed down over the years, he says, though sometimes he finds it difficult to bite his tongue. “Be ready to be mean,” he said by way of advice for anyone hoping to open a restaurant, bar or any business, really. “I now have about 110 employees. Someone always needs to be fired.”

That said, he estimates he pays better than many other restaurants because he wants to attract good workers. “If you want good food, you have to pay better. And treat people right or you’re not going to get the product you want.”

He and his various business partners promote from within, as well, offering incentives including part ownership. Good quality staff is one thing; good quality ingredients are another.

“Use good stuff,” he said simply, but figuring out food costs is a must. “We used to grind our own burgers at The Banshee. Then we started getting it ground at S&S [Produce]—and that works better [in terms of staff time], plus people like to hear that [we’re supporting local businesses].”

For his next venture, Brady and Rawbar owner Darren Chadderdon are working on the former Cyclesport space at the corner of Second and Main streets across from Bill’s Towne Lounge. That one is going to serve a few functions, he says: First, it will be a bakery to provide bread for all of his restaurants; second, it’ll offer quick food options for people on the go.

He envisions Bodega will serve doughnuts and breakfast sandwiches for breakfast, plus offerings from a coffee counter. For lunch, there will be deli sandwiches—no paninis or anything that requires cooking, unless it’s premade. “The goal is to be a deli, like the ones they have in Boston and Philly,” he said. At night, there’ll be a dessert bar, since none of his places serve dessert.

“I just want to create something new that we don’t have in Chico,” he said, adding, “If you’re gonna copy someone, do it better.”