What surprises me is he mentioned his "well-worn copy" of Kitchen Confidential. I enjoyed that book. Anthony Bourdain has a chapter entitled "Owner's Syndrome and Other Medical Anomalies"
Some quotes just from the fist of that chapter:
"To want to owner a restaurant can be a strange and terrible affliction. What causes such a destructive urge in so many otherwise sensible people? Why would anyone who has worked hard, saved money and often been successful in other fields want to pump his hard-earned cash down a hole that statistically, at least, will prove dry? Why venture into an industry with enormous fixed expenses (rent, electricity, gas, water, linen, maintenance, insurance, license fees, trash removal, etc) with notoriously transient and unstable workforce and highly perishable inventory of assets?. . . . The easy answer is, of course, is ego. The classic example is the retired dentist who was always told he threw a great dinner party . . . Unsurprisingly, a retired dentist who starts a restaurant for the sex, or to be told he's marvelous, is totally unprepared for the realities of the business. He's completely blindsided when the place doesn't start making money immediately. Undercapitalized, uneducated about the arcane requirements of new grease traps, frequent refrigeration repairs and unforeseen equipment replacement, when business drops, or fails to improve, he panics, starts looking for a quick fix . . . "
Whyyyyyyy would he and his wife believe that opening ANY small business would allow him to be home in time to see his children? Especially a restaurant?