The company placed the Dilberito in national supermarkets, but Mr. Adams now complains that rival food makers surreptitiously sent agents into stores to bury it on the back of shelves. He closed the venture in 2003, though he licensed the protein substitute to a food conglomerate and continues to draw small royalties.

Two years later, he curtailed speaking engagements after contracting spasmodic dysphonia, a rare brain disorder that robbed him of his voice for a year. Gradually, he learned tricks like altering his speech patterns or talking in rhymes, which let him regain some speaking ability, though his voice remains halting and wispy.

Today, he is married and a stepfather to two young children. He still awakes at 5 a.m., drawing his strip and producing books like “Stick to Drawing Comics, Monkey Brain!” his most recent collection of entries from his blog. Cartooning now comes easily to Mr. Adams, who gets many ideas from readers via his Web site and draws strips in a few hours each morning on his computer. “I spend less time thinking about the strip than anything else I do,” he said.

So when the numbers on Stacey’s at Waterford started to go south, he had the free time to try to protect his investment. He declines to disclose exactly how much he has already spent or what the restaurant is losing. “The trajectory changed,” he said. “It was moving in the right direction and suddenly started moving rapidly in the wrong direction.”

“We needed a change in strategy.”

“THE purpose of a plan is to disguise the fact that you have no idea what you should be doing.”

— Scott Adams, “Dilbert’s

Guide to the Rest of Your Life”

The linchpin of Mr. Adams’s strategy is the 50-person banquet room. “We are three banquets a week away from being on our way to riches and glory,” he said.

After taking over this summer, he hired an events coordinator who began attracting outings from local companies like Oracle, Chevron and Safeway, and introduced bonuses for employees who refer banquet business. He also turned to Dilbert fans for suggestions on how to use the party room, in a posting on his blog titled “Oh Great Blog Brain.”