The Trois Fois: Matt Jungen

This is a two-party negotiation over the sale of a restaurant. On the surface, it appears distributive with a very small zone of agreement. However, there are several ways to create value by transforming the relationship. For instance, the Seller can also become a Customer. The Seller can become a Supplier. And they can arrange to share resources. Each of these reframings of the relationship results in the creation of mutual value and a wider zone of agreement. Note, both sides are able to differentially value the deal in dollars. This case must be used in conjunction with "The Trois Fois: Louise DuChamp" UVA-QA-0585. Excerpt UVA-QA-0586 Version 1.25 THE TROIS FOIS: MATT JUNGEN Matt Jungen was feeling the strain of making a difficult personal decision. Four weeks earlier, Jungen's father had suffered a stroke. As an only child, he felt a huge responsibility to share the care-giving activities with his mother. The situation was further complicated by Jungen's career obligations. Jungen was a successful owner-chef of two restaurants in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He loved his work, but it filled his time almost completely and posed a serious conflict with his pressing family obligations. After much internal debate, Jungen decided that he could continue running only one of his restaurants, and Il Trattoria was the obvious choice, given the time constraints. Il Trattoria was an upper-middle-end Italian restaurant that Jungen had founded eight years previously. It opened late, just in time for the lunch crowd; its kitchen was staffed by highly capable sous-chefs; and its classic fare was easy to prepare and highly profitable. Indeed, it was a testament to Jungen's skill as a restaurateur that, at this point, running Il Trattoria required only minimal hands-on involvement from him. The second restaurant, the Trois Fois, was Jungen's dream restaurant, but, unfortunately, it required his constant attention. Jungen had opened the Trois Fois just two years earlier to satisfy his need to build his reputation as a skilled chef and to experiment with cutting-edge cuisine. Through smart promotion and some well-placed connections, Jungen had succeeded in attracting considerable attention to the Trois Fois. As a result, it already enjoyed an excellent reputation in the culinary world. Although the Trois Fois was far smaller than Il Trattoria, maintaining the Trois Fois's high standards required substantial time and energy. As Jungen considered the shift in his priorities, he realized that he simply could not continue to dedicate the time that the Trois Fois required. . . .