Star Profile
Daniel Rickenmann, restaurateur
By John Temple Ligon Temple@TheColumbiaStar.com

Daniel Rickenmann

Daniel Rickenmann was out of college and into a career track but didn't quite know which one. Rickenmann knew he wanted to start a restaurant and kept his options open until he settled on the rotisserie, which in 1994 became Birds on a Wire on Devine Street.

Rickenmann's mother emigrated to the U.S. from Switzerland in 1957; and his father, 1959. Rickenmann was born in Warrington, Penn. in 1969, and within four months his father moved the family to Spartanburg.

Rickenmann's father founded Zema Corporation, a textiles machinery firm based in Spartanburg.

Rickenmann went to Spartanburg's Jesse Boyd Elementary but left town to attend the Rectory School in Pomfret, Conn. He finished high school at Virginia Episcopal School in Lynchburg, Va.

Rickenmann was a dorm counselor at Virginia Episcopal, but his standout extracurricular activity was selling advertising. His hustle convinced his classmates to title him "Most Likely to Suck Blood from a Turnip."

The big event of his prep school experience was in his junior year when the school went co- ed.

Rickenmann enrolled at USC with intentions to major in political science thinking he would move on to law school. After his freshman year and a summer job in a Columbia law firm, Rickenmann decided on anything but law school.

While in undergraduate school, Rickenmann tended bar at the Elbow Room and Jungle Jim's, both in the same block of Harden Street.

Soon after graduation in 1992 with his political science degree from USC, Rickenmann worked for Georgia- Carolina Medical Gases, selling nitrous oxide. It was then the ideas behind Birds on a Wire began. Inspiration hit when Boston Chicken (later Boston Market) went through its initial public offering. The rotisserie franchise operation doubled the value of its share price on the first day.

While getting his life organized and getting his restaurant business under way, Rickenmann met and married Laura Herlong, today a pediatrician on Marshall Street next to Richland Memorial. The Rickenmanns have two daughters, ages five and eight, both enrolled at Hammond.

In 1998, four years after he began Birds on a Wire, Rickenmann expanded with The Filling Station, converting an old gas station on Devine Street into a deli. He demolished the deli's building in 2001, put up a new building and moved Birds on a Wire into it, which is today's location.

Rickenmann tried another location on Hard- scrabble Road, but Birds on a Wire didn't succeed there. The sale of the building lessened the pain of a closed shop.

The Main Street location of Birds on a Wire in the Meridian Building did well from day one. Also doing well are Rickenmann's two Ben & Jerry's, one next to the Devine St. Birds on a Wire and another on Main Street just south of the capitol.

Rickenmann's Momo's on Devine Street began three years ago. Rickenmann and his chef, Chris Bird from the Culinary Institute of America, still enjoy serving their original fare of Southern cooking with a French flare.

Rickenmann's commercial real estate ventures are under the name Silver Spur Properties.

Rickenmann is a golfer, and his wife is a tennis player. He fishes, and they both like to travel. Rickenmann is also one of Columbia's at- large members of Columbia City Council.