R.Epstein
I first arrived in Prague in 1992. At that time, it was still Czechoslovakia. No one knew whether the fall of the Berlin Wall and the opening of the Eastern Bloc countries was going to last. Yugoslavia, which many Americans confused with Czechoslavakia I’m sorry to say, was deep into ethnic strife. Half of my world thought I was nuts giving up a secure, corporate law practice in a big established law firm in San Diego for the unknown of Prague. But to me, it was a moment in history which only comes once in a lifetime. So, I sold my car, rented my townhouse on the beach and went to Prague to get involved.
Luckily for me, my law firm actually had a small office in Prague so I had a point of contact even though I was no longer working for the firm. That proved an incredibly valuable thing for us in terms of an entre into how things work there to the point of even having them help us find the flat which became our home and office for the next two years.
The atmosphere in Prague at that time was magical. It seemed anything was possible and there were no real rules governing how to get it done. The Czechs themselves had not yet decided exactly how they were going to regulate business and the city government didn’t quite know how to deal with all of the young people who had flocked to Prague at a time when raving was rampant and Prague was full of roving nightclubs and parties.
As a foreigner that had come to Prague with a fairly serious business objective, namely to get some kind of business off the ground, I found I had far more credibility than was my due simply because I was from the “West.” Teaching English was one of the most popular and in demand services. The Czechs in Prague had already gotten tired of the far too many foreigners in their city. And the easy money, mainly from buying recently restituted real estate from unsophisticated Czechs, had run its course. And so we set off on our first project – to open an American bar and grill in Prague!
