Cyrus: Turning a Traditional Business Model On Its Head (A)

The loss of the lease at their Michelin-starred Cyrus 1.0 in Sonoma County, California gives the partners an opportunity to shut down and rework a "broken" business model, one with labor intensive experiences six or seven nights a week, high burnout, high turnover-especially in the back of the house, low profits, and a lack of work-life balance. The case illustrates a novel planning process centered around (1) rethinking a gourmet dining experience using a model of how people entertain at home and (2) defining what people hate about something (in this case their jobs) and using that as a basis for describing an ideal solution before considering how to get there. The planning process still has to deal with the issues of work-life balance and how to achieve a three-day weekend for everyone and still reward investors.