For Reformed Bankers, The Restaurant Life Beckons

Trading finance for fine dining is a natural swap

- Lananh Nguyen and Kate Krader

On his first official day at work, hedge fund trader Sean Feeney faced a huge order backlog and a mob of disgruntled clients. His solution: hand out Champagne.

He’d already finished for the day at Anchorage Capital Group LLC. He was now working the January 2016 inaugural dinner shift at Lilia, the Italian restaurant he’d started with chef Missy Robbins in Brooklyn, N.Y. As the credit trader became increasingly overwhelmed, he grabbed glasses of bubbly for eager diners. Robbins asked for a word, pulled him aside, then told him off. Giving out Champagne was fine; doing it without a tray was not.

“The trading floor and the restaurant floor are as high intensity environments as you can get,” says Feeney, who previously worked at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. “You have to make split-second decisions on every position of a restaurant the same way you’re making decisions as a trader. You’re taking information in and reading people.”