Otto's

Paul Weckman opened Otto's, named after his father-in-law, with $300 worth of food and one employee-himself. He made sandwiches and soups, waited on customers, washed the dishes, balanced the books, and put out the fires. His one-man show provided little sleep, and it didn't help matters that Emily had given birth to identical twin boys a week before he opened. "We asked ourselves every day if we were going to make it," he says. But with a reputation for freshly made, generous sandwiches and salads, Weckman's lunch business grew quickly. He built a real kitchen. Two years ago, he draped the tables in cloth, dimmed the lights, and opened for dinner. Customers kept coming, and they brought their friends.