Owner's Drug Arrest Puts Future of Acclaimed Restaurant in Doubt Benjamin Petit for The New York Times Carl McCoy, the proprietor of Gwynnett St., who has been accused in a federal case, is reopening the restaurant on Friday. Once there were veal sweetbreads and ocean trout, rave reviews and $120 tasting menus for Gwynnett St., a fine-dining restaurant whose ambition seemed out of place in East Williamsburg. Then, two weeks ago, a federal drug arrest changed everything. According to a federal complaint, Gwynnett St."s proprietor, Carl McCoy, was arrested on Dec. 11 by Homeland Security agents and accused of receiving packages from China that contained methylone, one of the components of the drug known as Molly, a form of Ecstasy. The complaint stated that Mr. McCoy, 37, had financial difficulty and received money in exchange for accepting the packages. He cooperated with the agency, which arrested another man, Omar Calixto Herrera, 32, the intended eventual recipient of the drugs, according to the complaint. After the unsettling news, Gwynnett St."s chef, Owen Clark, 30, and the kitchen staff abruptly quit and the two-year-old restaurant closed. The drama continues, however, revealing the underbelly of the cook-at-all-costs Brooklyn food scene. Mr. McCoy has not been indicted - the government has 30 days from his arrest to do so - and he is free on $25,000 bail. Mr. McCoy is so determined to keep the restaurant going, at least in some form, that on Friday he will reopen Gwynnett St. for drinks, snacks and its signature whiskey bread. "I've proven that we can make something out of nothing," Mr. McCoy said in an interview on Thursday. We've already done it once, and I hope we can do it again. Mr. Clark, the chef, said he was trying to move on. As he looks for full-time employment, he will cook a six-course, $66 dinner at Contra, a restaurant on the Lower East Side, on Monday. Mr. Clark said that after consulting with other chefs and his family, he made the decision to leave. While he had not been threatened, he felt that because of the murky details of the case, "my safety had been in jeopardy." He added that those on the kitchen staff said they felt the same way. "We were all putting in a lot of effort - it makes it that much more sad when you see it all go up in smoke," he said. Mr. Clark was the second chef in the young restaurant's history. When Pete Wells of The New York Times awarded Gwynnett St. two stars in April 2012, Justin Hilbert was the chef, and Mr. Clark the sous chef. "Under the eye of Carl McCoy, the proprietor, the dining room staff is calmly professional, utterly free of pretense and attitude," Mr. Wells wrote. Mr. Hilbert left in April over creative differences with Mr. McCoy, he said in an interview. Mr. Clark said that when he took over he had not been aware of the extent of the restaurant's financial troubles, only that his checks, and those of his staff, had occasionally bounced, including the week before Mr. McCoy was arrested. The staff received their final paychecks, he added. Both he and Mr. Hilbert, 34, said that Mr. Herrera was a contractor who had helped build the restaurant. Mr. McCoy said in an interview that the two were friends. In early December, investigators for Homeland Security intercepted a package addressed to Mr. McCoy, who told them he was aware the contents were illegal. He received $1,000 from Mr. Herrera for each package he accepted. "I wasn't doing it for money," Mr. McCoy said in the interview Thursday. I wouldn't jeopardize my business. He said he could not comment further on the case. Michelle A. Gelernt, Mr. McCoy's lawyer, said, "It's very early in the case, and we can't say what will happen." Mr. McCoy, who is from Kansas City, Mo., acknowledged that operating a small business in the cutthroat environment of the Brooklyn culinary world was a steep challenge. "We had good weeks, we had bad weeks, just like any small business," Mr. McCoy said. We were paying our employees, we were paying our purveyors. We weren't dying, we weren't going under. But we weren't making money. The business model, it's been two years, and investors want to see a profit. Mr. McCoy had already been planning to scale back the menu to a less sophisticated one. "We were a great destination spot, but in order to sustain the business, we would need to appear more palatable for the neighborhood," he said.