At Travail, thieves flip the AC switch

On the subject of theft, most restaurateurs have to concern themselves with cutlery walking out of the building, or customers walking out on checks.

Both scenarios are peanuts compared to what happened earlier this month at Travail Kitchen & Amusements (pictured, above, in a Star Tribune file photo) in Robbinsdale.

It started when co-owners Mike Brown and James Winberg came in on what appeared to be a normal Friday morning during the first week of August. As they started working, they noticed that something was amiss.

"James said, 'It feels warm in here,'" said Brown. "And it was, it was 83 degrees."

Brown said that the moment Winberg commented on the not-so-temperate temperature, a man in mechanics garb walked in the door and asked to speak to the person in charge.

His message? "He said, 'I was servicing the rooftop next door, and I noticed that your AC has been stolen,' said Brown. "Then he took out his phone, and he showed me a picture. And I'm like, 'Are you kidding me?'

Unfortunately, he wasn't. The man took Brown and Winberg up on the restaurant's roof. It was true.

The short version of the story is that a brazen thief or thieves – the perpetrator(s) remain at large – gained access to the two-year-old building's roof and gutted the heavy-duty machinery, stripping out all the copper coils.

"You can see where they dragged it all across the roof, and dropped it off the side of the building, presumably into a truck," said Brown. "Wham-bam, they had our AC."

Brown noted that the neighbors' rooftop air conditioning units were also hit.

"Our insurance adjuster told us that the same kind of deal had happened about 10 miles away," he said. "These guys have a system. They're scrappers."

Because the four-star restaurant is a constant sellout, a full house of prepaid diners (the restaurant sells tickets, in advance, and its tasting menu format runs $91 to $135) was expected in a few hours, and the next night, too. With no air conditioning. In August.

Working with their insurance company and a contractor, the Travail ownership team (that's Brown and Winberg, along with fellow chefs Bob Gerken and Kale Thome) hoped to have the air conditioning restored by the time diners were scheduled to return, four nights later (the restaurant runs on a Wednesday through Saturday schedule), because the long-range forecast was not exactly conducive to gracious hospitality.

"They were talking Everglades-level humidity," said Brown. "It's the dog days of summer. We couldn't have people paying these kinds of prices, sitting and sweating in 90 degrees."

To no one's surprise, restoring the service wasn't going to be a cakewalk. Fortunately, the restaurant has a sense of ingenuity programmed into its DNA. After all, the ownership team pitched in to build the building, and the crew's cooking ethos is nothing if not inventive.

Brown and Winberg got to work and pulled together a temporary solution. A truck-size, 25-ton generator and air conditioning unit, so big it pretty much took over the restaurant's parking lot -- was called into duty (It was brought in by the event organizer who pitches in with Travail's wildly popular annual summer party, held at a shoreline park on nearby Crystal Lake). Brown and Winberg got to work, equipping garage door-style windows with plywood, with cutouts for 20-inch intake and outtake air vents. It worked.

"The customers didn't notice, temperature-wise," said Brown. "What they did notice is that they couldn't park in our parking lot, because that giant truck was there."