KC's Iron Chef

Although Dalzell is too busy blotting grease and making milkshakes to say much more than "hi," familiar faces are good for an opening day. Friends forgive early hiccups, like a 15-minute wait for food or the occasional sandwich mixup; one woman who wants a beef burger gets a black-bean patty instead.

An hour into Chefburger's existence, Dalzell struggles to keep up with the tickets spitting out of the machine at his station. He rifles furiously through a stack and then sets it down gingerly. He has a line of trays with tickets on them, waiting for burgers to finish cooking on the open grill. He takes a deep breath, lets it out slowly and goes back to figuring out who gets what. The long sigh is a rare sign of exasperation from a man who rarely shows how stretched he's become. There's a slight kink in production flow, but it's not a disaster.

This is the kind of moment when Dalzell reminds himself that he could be busier.