From High Finance to Ravioli

It’s a sunny Sunday in September, and Tim Sheerer is not on the golf course with his 12-year-old son, Johnny, playing in the annual father-son tournament. Instead, he’s spending the day preparing meals for roughly 350 customers at la Cappella, an Italian bistro, in a Pittsburgh suburb. That’s the restaurant he owns and operates with his wife, Colleen. The cook has called in sick.

Sheerer, 45, is OK with that. Missing the golf outing is disappointing, but it’s a rarity. In the four years since he traded in a $500,000-a-year Wall Street salary to start his own restaurant, he has spent many hours with his four kids, ages 10 to 16, at various sporting events.

After graduating with an M.B.A. from the University of Chicago in 1988, Sheerer spent 13-plus years rising through the ranks of Merrill Lynch’s U.S. Money Market Group, specializing in short-term corporate debt. He worked a crazy schedule-one day London, the next Milwaukee. It was Colleen, now 41, who was in charge of the kids and hugged the sidelines at their games. “I wasn’t able to be there for them,” Tim says.

Sports and family mean a lot to Sheerer. But he pressed on year after year for one more whopping January bonus, skipping the BMW, sailboat, and second home. In time, the couple was able to save enough for him to leave investment banking and head to Pittsburgh, his hometown, to live near his extended family and particularly his mother and father.

The idea to move back home started to take shape in the spring of 2001 when Tim’s father, who had nearly died from a heart attack some 16 years earlier at age 48, underwent quadruple bypass surgery. Then came the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Tim was not working in the World Financial Center (across the street from the World Trade Center)that day, but the couple knew several people who died as the twin towers crumbled.

Question. One month later, Tim turned 40. “I took a look around, and I wanted more,” he says. He told Colleen: “New York is going to have a bull’s-eye on it, maybe for the rest of our lives.” The couple asked themselves what meant most to them. The answer was simple: family.

While the couple belonged to a gourmet-cooking club, the notion of operating their own Italian restaurant never crossed their minds. It just worked out that way. Tim’s sister knew of a new restaurant venture moving into the Pittsburgh area. Intrigued, Tim signed on and eventually leased retail space. He spent a year working in one of the chain’s existing suburban restaurants. He bused tables, washed dishes, sautéed, and more. “If I was going to ask someone else to do these jobs, I had to know how to do them myself,” he says. Ultimately, the pair opted to open an independent restaurant and named it la Cappella, or the Chapel, for the Fox Chapel community many of its customers live in.

Tim’s energetic entrepreneurial spirit and business and finance background, combined with Colleen’s people skills, have made the effort rewarding. Restaurant regulars call Colleen the “ambassador” of the cozy, 110-seat dining establishment, which is tucked alongside a heavily trafficked strip mall. Three of the couple’s kids work as busers, hosts, and waiters. It’s a family affair.

Although 80-hour weeks were standard early on for Tim, today the schedule is not so demanding. If one of the kids has a game, you can be sure Tim will be there, probably coaching. With four college tuitions in sight, la Cappella will have to show more of a profit in time. But for now, with a lower cost of living, no mortgage payment, and Merrill Lynch stock options to tap, the couple has a cushion.

Tim’s dad, now nearing 70, has been able to see almost every one of his grandchildren’s games since the family moved to Pittsburgh. “You can’t put a price on that,” says Tim.

“And then we look at our children,” says Colleen. “They’re happy and thriving.” Tim nods in agreement. “They’re our legacy. We made this move for them and their future,” he says, as he heads back to the kitchen to whip up some ravioli.