On the wall in Rod Cornish's restaurant on Bank Street, Hot Rod Café, is a dollar bill given to him by his father, onetime City Councilor Bill Cornish, another downtown New London restaurateur.

"If you work it, it works" is written on the bill.

I like the story of that bill, in part because it's a nice family fable.

"I love my father," 46-year-old Rod Cornish told me not long ago, while we were sitting on the outdoor patio of his newest Bank Street restaurant, Tio Rodrigo's.

"I'm so lucky to have someone who instilled in me the notion that if you want to have something, you have to go get it," he said.

I would say that New London is lucky, too, to have the Cornishes, who between them operate three busy downtown restaurants.

As Rod Cornish suggested to me, there is a lot more cooperation than competition among restaurants downtown, because everyone seems to know there is a critical mass in building the area as a restaurant destination.

People like to come to town, park once, and move from place to place.

"I want to see everyone around here grow fat and get rich, and I want to be right in there with them," Cornish said.

His two restaurants are both a credit to the community.

The first, Hot Rod Café, started in 2005 in rented space on outer Bank Street and was a big hit, with a menu based on an assortment of wings. The slogan is "wings, beer and atmosphere."

He moved it in the spring of 2009 to a more prominent location on Bank Street, across from the Hygienic Arts building. Then he bought the building, which has a big water-view deck on the back.

This winter he bought the Bank Street building next to Harbour Towers condominiums, for $150,000. After some elaborate renovations, he opened Tio Rodrigo's, a Mexican restaurant.

(He likes to name his restaurants after himself. Hot Rod Café refers to his formal first name, Roderick. And Tio Rodrigo's is a loose translation of Uncle Roderick's, sort of a salute to his nieces and nephews, whom he likes to treat as the children he never had.)

The slogan for Tio Rodrigo's, which Cornish says features fresh daily Mexican sauces and specials, is: "Big Burritos, Big Fun."

It opened two weeks ago with about 12 employees, nine part-time and three full-time, a little overstaffed, Cornish said, in part because he believes in good service but also because he wants to make a good impression from the outset.

Cornish seems to have a knack for the restaurant business. He talks a lot about the importance of customers and listening to what people say they want to buy, not what he wants to serve. He said he tries to keep prices reasonable so that people can come back when they feel inclined.

The restaurant business is a sort of second career for Cornish.

He is a 1987 graduate of the University of Connecticut, where he majored in finance. He later got his master's degree in business administration from the University of Michigan and eventually went to work in New York for Merrill Lynch, where he was a vice president.

He still remembers being on a plane on a recruiting trip for Merrill Lynch on the day of the Sept. 11 attacks. He was grounded and stranded in New Orleans.

Not long after, he was offered a severance bonus from the company and took it.

He was going to open a restaurant right away, but devoted himself to training instead, taking cooking courses and working in the kitchens of some big chain restaurants. By the time he opened Hot Rod Café, he says, he was ready to stand in some night if the cook or a bartender quit.

When I asked him if he misses New York City, he said "every day."

He'd eventually like to have a retirement retreat there of some kind. But he adds he has no intention of leaving New London, where he grew up.

He said he's glad to be back.

"I really like New London. My business thrives here," he said.

And, like I said, New London is lucky to have him.

This is the opinion of David Collins.