Mizuna's consummate host remembered for special touch

Nation's Restaurant News, July 14, 2003 by Dina Berta

In this job I meet many restaurant operators who talk a lot about customer service, about treating customers like guests and about creating warm, entertaining experiences that will entice customers back again and again.

They spend time and money on training, trying to inspire their employees to embrace their visions of hospitality and become experts at customer service.

I've always thought what they should do is come to Denver and spend a week with Doug Fleischmann, co-owner of Mizuna and its sister restaurant next door, Luca d'Italia, which opened four months ago.

The food--new American, classically prepared by co-owner/chef Frank Bonanno--would wow them. The finesse of the professional wait staff would humble them. But Fleischmann, who worked the front of the house, would be the one to teach them. His approach to customers was something you just had to experience.

I'm sad to write, however, that the opportunity for others to meet Fleischmann was taken away forever on June 22. He was killed in a traffic accident early that Sunday morning a few blocks from his home. He was 46.

It occurred to me though, standing in the back of a crowded room at a memorial for him later that week, that although the chance to know Fleischmann was gone, people still could learn from him. All they had to do was talk to any of the Mizuna customers who packed that service.

"He was terrific at visiting every table, at practically every course," said Dr. Dean Prina, a pediatrician who had known Fleischmann since he was a waiter 15 years ago at the restaurant Strings. "He would kibbitz with people about their life, their kids. He really added a human touch to the experience. He had a great, wide, warm smile that made you want to go there, even if the food wasn't fabulous, which it is."

Joannie Warden, a high-school assistant principal, has visited Mizuna every Saturday night since it opened two years ago. It was a weekly treat, she said.

"After I had been there once, I felt like I had known him forever," Warden said. "He made me feel like I was special, like everyone was special."

Warden and many of the guests at the funeral had dined at Mizuna that Tuesday after the accident. They wanted to show their support for Bonanno and the staff But mostly they sat at their tables weeping, while people around them, who did not know what had happened, feasted happily, celebrating birthdays and anniversaries.

The white-tablecloth restaurant, with its $50 check average, immediately became a special-occasion destination. But some customers made visits to Mizuna monthly, biweekly and even weekly. There were customers who, after their dinners, would make reservations for another visit. That always gave Fleischmann a thrill, he once told me.

His best customers, he said, were Sandy Dreher and her husband, Marty Slebodnik, who once came for dinner three nights in one week.

With their hectic schedules, they ate out several nights a week, Dreher said. Mizuna, with Fleischmann waiting at the door, was different than any place they'd ever been.

"Doug was the absolute best," she said. "We loved him. He changed the way we viewed the whole group of people who take care of you when you go dine in a restaurant."

Fleischmann introduced them to the servers and the entire cooking staff The 50-seat restaurant has an open kitchen and when Dreher and Slebodnik would come in, the chefs would wave at them and call them by name, Dreher said.

"I have a very stressful life," she said. "I own my own business. When you go in Mizuna, the cares of the world go away. You're just in an environment where there are all these good feelings--love and care and concern. You would leave the restaurant feeling so good."