For centuries, America and Europe have honored their writers, painters and composers. The people who build restaurants have never received even one percent of that admiration and gratitude.
Someone dreamed up the concept, the room and the menu, hired and trained the people, and made the guest happy. That person is an artist.
Yet building a successful restaurant is a billion times harder than painting a picture.
I grew up inside a restaurant. A member of my family has owned a restaurant and a hotel in my hometown, Odesa, Ukraine, for many years. It was one of the first in the city to serve French and European haute cuisine, with the highest level of service. From the age of twelve I watched every step: buying the building, the renovation, creating the concept, opening the doors, growing the business. And every problem along the way: the inspections, the cash gaps, the staff. I helped and worked there from childhood. At eighteen I was the assistant manager.
I tested menus, invented promotions, ran the marketing and proposed new concepts. I fought off officials who came to demand bribes. I chose soap by how it smelled on a guest's hands, kept the dining room spotless and drilled the waiters until service was perfect. I saw every pain an owner carries: the costs, the staff, the inspections, the endless moving parts.
My family is full of entrepreneurs, doctors and intellectuals. We were raised to value an intellectual, entrepreneurial approach to life, hard work and honesty: a rational, scientific way of thinking, attention to detail, perfectionism and, above all, long-term thinking. Cooking is a real culture in our home. Since childhood I have loved visiting restaurants, studying their concepts and cooking myself. Restaurants have always been one of the most important things in my life.
I have a law degree and worked as a lawyer for small businesses. Then I built my own digital marketing agency, again working with small businesses, and later an investment real estate company. I worked with almost every kind of business there is. Nothing was as complex as a restaurant.
When the war came to Ukraine, my family lost everything. I became the one who had to rebuild it. I came to New York, the city I had always seen myself in, and started again from zero. So I know what it means to start from nothing. Many of you started the same way.
I spent a long time deciding which clients my finance company should serve. In the end the answer was clear. There is no one more deserving, nothing more interesting, and no business I understand better, with my mind, my heart and my intuition, than the restaurant business.
You build something beautiful out of nothing, every single day. You deserve the best money, the best terms and people who truly stand behind you. And you deserve to be recognized. That is why I started a second project: DRACARYS Media, honoring America’s restaurateurs.
Actors, directors, artists, even famous chefs get the awards and the applause. The owners who create restaurant concepts and the managers who keep them alive every day almost never do. DRACARYS Media, the second project by Cyrus Tkachuk, tells their stories: from a Michelin-starred concept to the small pizzeria that is a hero in its neighborhood. With ratings and awards for every city, state and niche.
Every story deserves to be heard. Every restaurateur, big or small, deserves real attention and gratitude.
A Renaissance for American restaurants.
In 15th-century Florence, the world saw the Renaissance. It happened in part because patrons like the Medici created the conditions for artists to work.
We want the next 50 years to be a Renaissance for American restaurants: hundreds of thousands of beautiful new concepts, Michelin stars, and places the world has never seen before. We believe in America's restaurateurs more than anyone. All their talent needs to break through is financing and support. And real support is built on understanding, belief and love.
For you, that means a concierge who finds the money when something breaks and when something bigger becomes possible.
Two minutes. No obligation. Your concierge calls you back.
Cyrus Tkachuk is the founder and principal of Dracarys Finance, a New York-based capital concierge for America's restaurants, and the founder of DRACARYS Media. He grew up around his family's restaurant in Odesa, Ukraine, holds a law degree, worked as a lawyer for small businesses and built a digital marketing agency and an investment real estate company before moving to New York.
Mr. Home Run is the nickname of Cyrus Tkachuk, founder of Dracarys Finance and DRACARYS Media.
DRACARYS Media is the second project of Cyrus Tkachuk. It tells the stories of America's restaurant owners and restaurant managers and plans ratings and awards for every city, state and niche, from Michelin-starred concepts to neighborhood pizzerias.
Dracarys Finance finds restaurants the best financing. DRACARYS Media honors the people who build and run restaurants. Both were founded by Cyrus Tkachuk.