This huckster didn't "just" surface in Seattle. I've unfortunately been hearing about his antics there for a number of months now. Attention Seattle: This guy is full of shit ignore him!

As far as the NYT's concerned, he did.

Yep, it's old news, NYT. (Perhaps they should stop playing footsie with Portland, and pay better attention to the other cities?) Our sister paper wrote a big piece on his One Pot concept—in November 2006.

As far as the NYT is concerned, both Portland and Seattle just surfaced as well.

Matt:
Did you read the article? How can you says "well played" when the guy ran out on his family and all the employees and suppliers who trusted him?

I read the article and discovered (3/4 of the way in) that Michael Hebb actually paid off most of the debtors out of his own pocket. (Though the reporter does find a baker to whom ripe still owes $1000.) Weird that this detail is buried way inside.

In any case, I don't write this from a neutral position. I worked with Michael and Naomi and think the ripe story is fascinating and complicated and the NYT guy got it all wrong. For a different take (my take) get the Back Room anthology from Clear Cut Press and read the intro. It's not the last word, but it at least acknowledges some of the amazing things ripe accomplished for Portland.

Of course I mean "debts," what MH paid off...

Utterly shocked a guy with the biggest bullshit title in Portland history "writer in residence" would defend the guy giving him paychecks to ponce around town.

How's "Kill the Restaurant" coming along, fucker?

What paychecks? Though, I have to admit the food was great.

David Howitt, who assumed ownership of Ripe when Michael left town, also assumed the debt. Unless Michael has repaid that debt of several hundred thousand dollars -- and as of my interview with Howitt last spring, he had not -- it is Howitt who made good to vendors and employees.

This, of course, is different from repaying investors; most of those lost their money, which is not unusual when one invests in restaurants; they are most often vanity investments, a place to bring your friends and have a drink. "We were more like patrons," said Howitt, who explained Michael's pitch to those who ponied up $260K in ten days.

"What he basically said was, I am going to a select group of people in the community... You’ll have a note, and your note will be unsecured/secured, depending on who he talked to; he had different approaches. You’ll get paid back on a monthly basis your money plus interest, and you’ll get some free food every year and you’ll kind of get VIP status."

Which was okay with investors, who were interested in "putting Portland on the map," which, as I said in the Times piece, Michael did. It was one of the things he made good on.

What (amongst other things) is disingenuous, is Michael's quote in the Times that, “I got lost in the dream of running a mega-restaurant group when I should have stuck to stimulating conversation around food.” This is nonsense; he never wanted to run a mega-restaurant group, and clearly did not run it well. He always wanted to have stimulating conversation -- who doesn't? Problems arise however when those conversations have foundations of sand, slipping here and there. There is something to be said for mystery; it's another thing to tell a reporter, your restaurant won ROY before it even opened. That's just snotty.

So let me get this straight….Hebberoy leaves, remains relevant, unless you think the NYT is irrelevant, and we in Portland are left with the biggest bunch of whiners on the planet, namely Tommy Habetz who can’t get over the fact that the restaurant failed. I’m so sick of hearing that guy bitch and moan, what industry does he work in. At least Seattle is getting national press.

Deric (@11) is right! Why can't we get national press here in Portland? I mean, honestly, when was the last time you read about our city in the New York Times?