Gastamo is the word for “hospitality” in Esperanto, a sort of simplified language created in the 19th century with the hope of it becoming a universal second language.

It didn’t really catch on, but Gastamo group founder and CEO Jean-Philippe Failyau and his business partner, chief vision officer Peter Newlin, liked the idea of creating something that would be easy for everyone to use.

“For us it’s about building restaurants for the 99 and not the one,” Newlin said.

It’s also about being embedded in the community, something the Denver-based group takes seriously with its six concepts.

Park Burger is a four-unit gourmet burger bar with a mid-century design aesthetic and a full bar, the first one of which Failyau opened in his own neighborhood, “and there weren’t any unique family restaurants in that community.”

Park & Co. is a single-unit restaurant in Denver’s Uptown neighborhood with burgers, wings, tenders, and two drag shows every Sunday for brunch.

Birdcall is a 12-unit limited-service fried chicken sandwich concept with investment from Denver- based Mantucket Capital, with restaurants in Colorado, Arizona, and Texas. It’s a tech-heavy brand with a proprietary point-of-sale system in place at ordering kiosks and a vision to analyze the data to enhance the consumer experience. It’s headed up by industry veteran Mark Lohmann, formerly of Rego Restaurant Group and Qdoba.

Homegrown Tap & Dough is a three-unit a pizzeria and pasta bar “with Colorado flair,” particularly 1970s-era ski culture.

Perdida Kitchen is about to open its second location and features the food of Baja California. The name means “loss,” and it’s meant to be a place for escape.

Lady Nomada is another Mexican concept, a full-service taco bar with live music and record players. Gastamo just opened the second location and is looking for a third and fourth.

—Bret Thorn

Vida & Estilo Restaurant Group — that’s Life and Style in Spanish — is a Miami-based restaurant group founded in 1996. The group has 10 concepts in South Florida (Brickell, Miami and South Beach) and three in Las Vegas, in the Venetian and Caesars Palace
hotels. Though it primarily operates fine-dining restaurants, Vida & Estilo’s Cortadito Coffee House has three locations in South Florida, with one to come. It also operates 24/7 diner Café Americano with five locations across both cities. Also this year, Vido & Estilo will add a Havana 1957 in Las Vegas, joining the Cuban restaurant’s five locations in Florida, as well as two Miami hotels. Existing concepts include Oh Mexico, the group’s first restaurant, which opened in 1997; Mercato della Pescheria, with multiple locations in Las Vegas; and Marabu, Coal Fire Cuban Cuisine, which opened in January 2020.

—Leigh Anne Zinsmeister

For over 40 years, Detroit restaurateur Joe Vicari has opened restaurants on three principles: fresh, authentic cuisine; impeccable service; and a warm, inviting atmosphere. There are now 25 restaurants spanning 10 concepts within the group, most of which are in the metro Detroit market.

Concepts include Andiamo, a made-from-scratch Italian restaurant that first opened in 1989. Joe Muer Seafood was established in 1929 (and later acquired by Vicari), while French-American bistro The Statler first opened in 2021. Birmingham Pub provides a twist to the classic gastropub experience, serving lunch, dinner and private dining opportunities in Birmingham, Mich.

Bronze Door offers a “modern reimaging of classic dishes,” while Andiamo Bistro serves scratch-made pasta dishes and first opened in April 2023. Vicari Group also includes 29º 41º Mediterranean Street Food, created by Michelin Star-awarded Chef Jacques Van Staden. The company also owns The Country Inn Restaurants, first opened in 1993, and Vito’s Bakery, which has been serving family recipes for over 53 years. Outside of Detroit, the group also owns Andiamo Steakhouse at the D Las Vegas Casino.

—Alicia Kelso

Ciccio Restaurant Group, which considers itself a “collective of health-forward, high-vibe hospitality concepts,” was founded in 1990 in New York City by James Lanza, and it’s named for his father, Frank (Ciccio) Lanza, a Fortune 500 CEO. James Lanza came to Tampa, Fla., where Ciccio is now based, in 1996. He fell in love with the area and continued the restaurant group there. It now encompasses more than 12 brands, including build-your-own bowl concept Fresh Kitchen, fast-casual restaurant Mexican Taco Dirty, casual-dining restaurant CALI and Mexican restaurant Green Lemon. Other restaurants in Ciccio’s portfolio include Daily Eats, Jay Luigi’s, Water + Flour, Luv Child and Sweet Soul. Many of the restaurants have expanded out into other Florida cities, including St. Petersburg, Sarasota, Orlando and Miami. Ciccio Restaurant Group also operates fitness and yoga brand CAMP, with locations in Tampa and Santa Monica, Calif.
—Leigh Anne Zinsmeister

Ethan Stowell Restaurants (ESR) started with the launch of Union in downtown Seattle in 2003. Additional properties followed, including the pasta-focused Tavolàta, How to Cook a Wolf, and neighborhood pizza joint Ballard Pizza Co. Over time, ESR properties became known for their dedication to unfussy sophistication and comfortable dining. Today the group covers 12 unique concepts and over 20 locations, along with corporate partnerships with the Seattle Mariners and other brands.

“We believe that the world is a better place when we gather around a table,” the company states on its website, and that’s the ESR mission, according to Sennen David, vice president of marketing and culture and executive wine director.

“At our heart, we are here to serve our communities with food for the body and human connection for the soul. Ethan Stowell Restaurants will always strive to set a place at the table for everyone,” the company said. “In service to our guests and our team, we aim to create shared environments and experiences that turn neighbors into friends and neighborhoods into communities.”

Ethan Stowell has restaurants in Seattle and Spokane, Wash., and New York, and concepts include such far-ranging brands as Ballard Pizza Co., Bombo, Cortina, Cortina Café, Goldfinch Tavern, How to Cook a Wolf, Red Cow, Rione XIII, Rubinstein Bagels, Staple & Fancy, Tavolàta, The Victor Tavern, Victory Bar & Coffee, Victory Burger, Wolf NYC, and Wonder Market.

—Ron Ruggless

It all began with a diner in sunny San Diego in 1981. David and Lesley Cohn joined together to open their first restaurant. Little did they know that 42 years later they would have 26 units in their Cohn Restaurant Group and employ over 1,000 people. As the Cohns grew their business, they knew family was a priority and, as they got older, the Cohns’ children, Jessica and Jeremy, as well as their son-in-law Mike, joined leadership at the group. That familial environment extends to the employees and the guests at all the locations of the San Diego-based group.

The group’s diverse portfolio covers many cuisines and includes restaurants 333 Pacific, Del’s Hideout and Park Social, to name a few.

—Holly Petre

Chef and restaurateur Michael Mina founded Mina Group in 2003 after a decade of running restaurants and achieving critical acclaim. The group partners mostly with hotel groups to open restaurants on their properties, a strategy that allows Mina to focus on actually running the restaurants while the hotels take care of infrastructure and administrative duties such as accounting.

The company now operates 38 restaurants in 10 states as well as Dubai. That includes seven Bourbon Steak restaurants, Stripsteak restaurants in Las Vegas and Honolulu, Bourbon Pubs in Lake Tahoe and the company’s home city of San Francisco, and several one-off restaurants in that city including Clock Bar, Estiatorio Ornos a Michael Mina Restaurant, Mina Family Kitchen, and Pabu Izakaya.

Mina puts a strong stress on education, and during the pandemic formalized that with Mina-versity, a collection of online learning tools including a frequently updated database with some 40,000 recipes.

Eric Martino, the former chief operating officer of the José Andrés Group, was recently named Mina Group’s president.

—Bret Thorn

New York City-based Major Food Group is no stranger to the city. It owns and operates some of the Big Apple’s signature restaurants, including celebrity-favorite and Michelin-starred restaurant Carbone, as well as Sardelle’s and The Grill.

Founded by chefs Rich Torrisi and Mario Carbone and entrepreneur Jeff Zalaznick, Major Food Group has started to make a name for itself in new markets like Miami, Boston and Dallas. In fact, Carbone’s Miami location is the first of Major Food Group’s massive expansion in South Florida that includes a members-only club as well as two other concepts, a French-inspired steakhouse and an Italian restaurant. The group knows their reservations are hard to get, but that didn’t stop the founders from adding a
private club in Barclays Center in Brooklyn called Crown Club, serving food from Major Food Group locations as well as other chef-curated foods. The catch? The club is only open for those with courtside Brooklyn Nets tickets.

—Holly Petre

Dallas-based FB Society, a concept creator and operator, was cofounded by Randy DeWitt and Jack Gibbons in 2005. The group has already spun off two brands, the fast-casual Velvet Taco in 2021 and the casual-dining chain Twin Peaks in 2020. FB Society has launched over 20 brands. Its Food Hall Co. division oversees Legacy Food Hall, which opened in 2017 in Plano, Texas; and the Assembly Hall, which opened in 2021 in Nashville, Tenn. The Whiskey Cake Holdings division includes 10 units of Whiskey Cake, which was founded in 2010, as well as three Mexican Sugar (founded in 2013) units and eight Sixty Vines (founded in 2016) restaurants. Other brands include one location of The Ranch, opened 2008, as well as two locations of Haywire (2017), three of the Southern-inspired Ida Claire (2015) and three of the fast-casual Son of a Butcher Slider Bar (2020).

“At FB Society, innovation and experience are the lifeblood of our company, driving every decision we make,” said Gibbons, who serves as CEO. “It’s embedded in our DNA and fuels our passion for creating extraordinary hospitality experiences. We believe true innovation in hospitality comes from challenging the status quo, embracing change, and daring to think outside the box. It’s about courage. That’s the foundation of our philosophy at FB Society.”

—Ron Ruggless

Charleston, S.C.-based Indigo Road Hospitality Group (IRHG) has a portfolio of 31 upscale restaurants in 12 Southeast cities, most recently opening in July its O-Ku restaurant in Greenville, S.C., adding to an Indaco that debuted there in early June. IRHG, founded in 2009, owns, operates, and manages restaurants and boutique hotels throughout the country. In addition to Indaco and O-Ku, its restaurant brands include The View at Morrison Yard, Colletta, Markely & Blythe, Maya, Mizu, Brasserie La Banque, Oak Steakhouse, The Kingstide, Town Hall, Daniel Island Market Eatery, Sukoshi, the Cedar Room, Mercantile & Mash, and the Cocktail Club. Steve Palmer, a James Beard Award semifinalist, is the founder and managing partner. Palmer co-founded Ben’s Friends, an industry sobriety-support group, with friend Mickey Bakst. As of June 2023, IRHG had four open hotels with additional acquisitions under contract and five scheduled openings through 2024.

—Ron Ruggless

Portland, Ore.-based ChefStable was founded in 2008 when Chef Andy Ricker, founder of Pok Pok, was looking to open another restaurant. He was introduced to Kurt Huffman by fellow restaurant owner Leather Storrs, and together Huffman and Ricker created the group, which now counts over 30 restaurants in its portfolio.

“From the get-go, Kurt had this idea of a collection of concepts and chefs under an umbrella that would help them maybe do some of the things that they don’t do as well,” Storrs said.

ChefStable partners with chefs to design, build and operate restaurants. Concepts include Sacramento’s Aurora and Cora Coffee; Portland’s Beer O’Clock, Bluto’s, Coopers Hall Winery and Tap Room, Deadshot, Dos Hermanos Bakery, Fracture Brewing, Grassa, La Moule, Lardo, Loyal Legion, The Mahonian, Oven and Shaker, Ox, Pacific Standard, St Jack, The Evergreen, Voysey, Whey Bar, and XLB; and Beaverton’s Flora.

—Alicia Kelso

In 1993, two Washington, D.C.-area restaurateurs, Rob Wilder and Roberto Alvarez, convinced a 23-year-old Spanish chef to come to the city to open a new tapas concept. That chef was José Andrés and the restaurant was Jaleo, the tapas restaurant that celebrated its 30th anniversary in 2023 and includes five locations worldwide.

With Jaleo, Andrés introduced a new concept to many American diners: tapas. He and his restaurants — from Jaleo to Zaytinya to Oyamel and beyond — were early drivers of the shared-plates movement.

The José Andrés Group’s mission is “To Change the World Through the Power of Food.” The diverse array of restaurants that make up the group span cuisines and cultures, price points, and service styles. From two-Michelin-starred restaurants to game-changing small-plates restaurants to fast-casual eateries and a food hall, the company offers a wide variety of tastes.

—Holly Petre

Baltimore native Alex Smith jumped into foodservice at an early age, opening a Haagen-Dazs franchise right out of college and later a diner, Harbor East Delicatessen & Pizzeria, which opened in 2010. From there he was off to the races, expanding his portfolio to fine-dining Mediterranean concept Ouzo Bay, the high-end Japanese concept Azumi, and the tavern-style Loch Bar, which has since grown to four locations.

That differentiated approach to concept development lent Smith the name for his burgeoning restaurant group: Atlas. Today, Atlas has more than 30 concepts in its portfolio employing 2,000 people in five markets. But Baltimore remains home, as Smith and his cofounder brother, Eric, are deeply committed to providing opportunity to the city in which they were raised. Twenty-six of Atlas’s properties are in and around Baltimore.

“One of the reasons that we do so many different concepts in the Maryland area, and specifically Baltimore, is we’re really trying to invigorate and change the city through F&B,” Smith said. “We’ve got a slogan that we say around our Baltimore properties, which is ‘the City Needs It.’”

—Sam Oches

Based in New York City, Patina Restaurant Group, founded in 1989, now encompasses more than 25 independent restaurants in New York, Boston, Florida and Southern California, as well as Patina Catering, which services events nationwide. Its Florida locations are sprinkled throughout Disney Springs and the EPCOT park at Disney World, while it also has three restaurants in Anaheim, Calif.’s Downtown Disney, with one to come; for Paseo and Centrico, slated for 2024, Patina will partner with chef Carlos Gaytán. Many of Patina’s restaurants are in landmarks and museums, including State Grill and Bar in the Empire State Building, Harbor View Café and seasonal restaurants in Boston’s New England Aquarium, and Ray’s & Stark Bar in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. In Boston, Patina has Hub Hall, a food hall with 18 dining options, including Momosan Ramen Boston by chef Masaharu Morimoto. Patina is a division of Delaware North, a Buffalo, N.Y.-based hospitality company.

—Leigh Anne Zinsmeister

Founded by restaurateur Stephen Starr, STARR Restaurant Group launched in 1995. When he was 21, Starr opened his first restaurant, Grandmom Minnie’s, which served food by day and turned into a comedy club at night. He then went on to open Stars, a cabaret that featured the likes of Jerry Seinfeld, U2 and Bruce Springsteen. STARR Restaurants encompasses 36 concepts that capture the elements of Latin America, Asia, the U.K., and the U.S. Based in Philadelphia, it’s turned the city of Brotherly Love into a restaurant mecca. Starr himself has won “Restaurateur of the Year” from both Bon Appétit and Zagat, as well as “Outstanding Restaurateur” from the James Beard Foundation. Some of his concepts in both Philadelphia and New York include Buddakan and Pastis, which also has locations in Florida and an upcoming location in Washington D.C. Others in Philadelphia include The Love and Talula’s Garden.

—Holly Petre

Sage Restaurant Concepts has spent the past 40 years as a management company for hotels, with one group managing the hotels and another focused on developing and running its restaurants. The Denver-based company operates around 50 restaurants, bars, and music venues across the country with annual revenue of around $300 million.

“Currently all of our restaurants are in hotels,” said chief operating officer Mark Augarten. But that is about to change as the company is getting ready to develop some freestanding restaurants.

Most of them are one-off concepts, such as Mercat a la Planxa, a Catalan restaurant in The Blackstone Hotel in Chicago; Assembly, a rooftop bar at The Logan in Philadelphia; and Departure, a pan-Asian restaurant in The Nines hotel in Portland, Ore.

But there’s also the three-unit modern steakhouse Urban Farmer, and two-unit concepts Bowerbird Coffee, casual-dining Hello Betty, and Kachina Cantina, a restaurant focusing on the Four Corners region of the U.S. and Baja Mexico.

“It’s very important for us to make sure that each brand is unique, providing its own individual experience to the guests,” Augarten said. “We’re very conscientious of not homogenizing things. It would be very easy when you have so many brands to start putting similar items on the menu. … But generally we like each brand to be operated as if it was an independent restaurant.”

Sage hires managers who will “deliver artful hospitality, but at the same time they’re acting like an owner, thinking like a partner, and having that individual restaurant point of view,” while taking a long-term view of cultivating customers, Augarten said.

“We use the breadth of our company to further the growth and development of these individuals,” he added. For example a promising assistant general manager at one property might be tapped for another location when a general manager position opens. “We’re constantly developing our bench strength,” he said. “I think it’s one of the attractants to our company.”

So is the fact that the concepts range from limited-service coffeehouses to bars to casual dining to fine dining.

Meanwhile, Sage’s management is conscious of the importance of maximizing the restaurants’ value for their hotel partners, he said. Those, too, are long-term relationships, which means they can have a good idea which location would benefit from an Urban Farmer and which should have something like a Sunset Lounge, a rooftop bar in The Elizabeth Hotel in Fort Collins, Colo.

“That’s based on the guests who are using that hotel and the demographics around it,” Augarten said. “I think that’s one of our strengths: We were able to offer a variety of solutions and we have a track record of running them.”

The restaurants all also benefit from the company’s sales and marketing teams, as well as culinary and beverage experts, he said. “You have a bevy of resources to tap into that SRG can provide.”

Sage is now entering new territory as it prepares to launch an independent restaurant company.

“These will be freestanding restaurants, not in hotels, that we are planning to move forward with next year,” he said.

These would be restaurant concepts it already owns that have proven their worth over the past five to 10 years. “It’s one of the most exciting things that Sage Restaurant Concepts is undertaking right now,” Augarten said.

—Bret Thorn

Indianapolis-based Cunningham Restaurant Group (CRG) was formed in 1997 by Mike Cunningham and today, with some recent openings, counts 42 total restaurants in Indiana, Kentucky, and Ohio. From BRU Burger Bar, a gourmet burger and craft beer hangout, to Vida, a fine-dining venue with sommeliers in-house, to Union 50 with a chef-driven menu and industrial feel, CRG aspires to make sure its restaurants are part of their local communities. Many of CRG’s concepts showcase locally grown produce from the company’s own CRG Grow Greenhouse, in addition to locally sourced meats and vegetables.

CRG began with Boulder Creek Dining Company in Brownsburg, Ind., and expanded in 1999 with the opening of Charbonos. Cunningham’s first standalone restaurant came in 2003 with the opening of Stone Creek Dining Company. Now the company includes 18 unique concepts: Boulder Creek, Bru Burger Bar, Café 251, Charbonos, Commission Row, Livery, Marquee at the Landing, Mesh, Modita, Nesso, Provision, Rize, Stone Creek Dining Company, Tavern, Theo’s Italian, Union 50, Vida and Shin Dig.

—Alicia Kelso

Phoenix-based Hillstone Restaurant group was founded in 1977 with Houston’s in Nashville, Tenn. — named for founder George Biel’s native state of Texas. From Nashville, the company expanded into Atlanta, New Orleans, Houston, and Dallas, then Florida (it’s in seven cities there), Chicago, and New York. In the early 1990s, Hillstone moved west to California, Arizona, and Colorado. Houston’s now has 11 locations in 7 states, while the full group has 39 restaurant units across 15 fine-dining brands in 11 states. To this day, the company is family-owned with Biel at the helm. In addition to Hillstone and Houston’s, the group encompasses Bandera, East Hampton Grill, Hillstone at Bal Harbour, Los Altos Grill, R+D Kitchen, South Beverly Grill, Woodmont Grill, Cherry Creek Grill, Gulfstream, Honor Bar, Palm Beach Grill, Rutherford Grill, and White House Tavern.

—Leigh Anne Zinsmeister

A relatively new restaurant group, Thunderdome Restaurant Group was founded in 2012 in Cincinnati, Ohio, by three friends with storied careers in the restaurant industry. Joe Lanni, John Lanni, and Alex Blust are cofounders and owners of the 11-year-old group. The Lannis are brothers who grew up in Ohio with aspirations for the restaurant industry and, after several jobs — including with Lettuce Entertain You and UNO Chicago Grill Restaurants — the brothers joined forces to create their first restaurant, Currito, which now has 23 locations. They then joined with a former colleague, Alex Blust, to start Thunderdome Restaurant Group, where the trio has gone on to create eight restaurant concepts with locations across the country, including in Florida, Kentucky, Illinois, Massachusetts, Maryland, Ohio and Pennsylvania.

—Holly Petre

Cameron Mitchell Restaurants has 20 different concepts with a total of 65 locations, including 22-unit casual-dining chain Rusty Bucket Restaurant and Tavern, and Ocean Prime, an 18-unit fine-dining restaurant specializing in steak and seafood. Most of the rest are single-unit operations in and around the group’s hometown of Columbus, Ohio. Its newest restaurant and 21st concept, Cento, is slated to open in Columbus on Aug. 22, joining Mitchell’s other Italian concepts, including two-unit Marcella’s Ristorante, Martini Modern Italian, and Valentina’s.

The company anticipates sales in excess of $470 million in 2023.

Mitchell founded the company 30 years ago with the opening of Cameron’s American Bistro in the Columbus suburb of Worthington, Ohio, which is still open and selling an eclectic lineup of modern American steak and seafood including shrimp and grits, Korean braised short ribs, wagyu hanger steak, and pork chop and clams.

The group’s Budd Dairy Food Hall is an incubator for up-and-coming vendors, with 10 such partners today.

Among other multi-unit restaurants in the group are The Pearl Restaurant, Tavern & Oyster Room, with three locations; Hudson 29 Kitchen & Drink, with two units; and two-unit Avenue Steak Tavern.

—Bret Thorn

Some of Warren Thompson’s fondest memories from growing up in rural Virginia in the segregated 1960s were going out to eat with his family at Shoney’s. During a recent interview, he recalled sitting in a Shoney’s one time when he was 12 and telling his parents, “I’d like to own one of these someday.”

“From that point on, I was focused on getting into the restaurant business,” he said.

Thompson put in the work behind that focus. After earning his bachelor’s degree, he interned as an assistant manager at a Roy Rogers unit within the Marriott Corporation as part of an MBA program at the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business.

“My plan was to learn from the ground up. I stayed until I was 32,” Thompson said.

He then acquired dozens of Big Boy restaurants from Marriott and converted most of them to Shoney’s, which laid the foundation for what is now Thompson Hospitality, the largest minority-owned foodservice and one of the largest retail food and facilities management companies in the country. The company started with restaurants in 1992, then moved into contract services and is now in hotels as well. On the restaurant side, Thompson predicts the company will end up with around 72 units at the end of this year, making up about 15-20% of its total revenue.

“We’re still very much a contract foodservice company, but restaurants are our fastest growing area,” he said.

Thompson Hospitality counts 18 proprietary restaurants, while also operating franchised brands like Chick-fil-A, Tropical Smoothie and Pizza Hut on college campuses, in train stations and other contracted markets. On the proprietary side, the company’s strategy is simple. “We want to try to penetrate markets, starting with D.C. as our homebase. We will have about 60 restaurants in D.C. this year, and if I can end up with 150-200 in the D.C. market in the next three to five years, that will be great,” Thompson said. “And the reason is efficiency.”

For instance, Thompson concepts Matchbox, Wiseguy Pizza and Makers Union are all about a block from each other in the D.C. market. The company is looking to soon fit The Rub and Big Buns restaurants within that vicinity as well.

“If I can end up with five restaurants within a three-block radius, then when maintenance crews pull up, they can do all their work without moving much. Inspections, training, development can do their jobs without having to run all over town or the country,” Thompson said. “Also, when we bring in people, we can offer them a career path without them having to relocate. You can move up in our organization and know your kids won’t have to change schools. We think that’s a competitive advantage.”

In addition to scaling with contiguity in mind, Thompson Hospitality is also focused on an updated marketing strategy; for example, developing a Thompson Restaurant Group Card that customers can use to accumulate points across all its brands.

“The same customer can go to Matchbox one day, Big Buns another and Milk and Honey another. Or they can go to Big Buns for lunch and Matchbox for dinner. I don’t look at them as a Matchbox customer, but rather a Thompson Restaurant Group customer, especially when we have restaurants adjoining each other,” he said.

The company is also working on bringing its maintenance work in house and is testing a new operating partner model. For the maintenance piece, which will be in place before next year, Thompson believes the company can cut costs in half and save about $4 million annually.

“It’s a tremendous opportunity for us that I think will be fleshed out based on having more restaurants open close to each other,” he said.

On the operating partner side, Thompson believes having one such partner run two restaurants, rather than having two general managers for each restaurant, will allow the company to pay them more and offer a bigger compensation package, which is also tied to the performance of the business. The company is targeting a 5% ownership-after-5-years incentive program for the OP position that Thompson believes will attract more talented GMs who want to get promoted to that role.

“Overseeing two restaurants with larger volumes creates a bigger opportunity. From there, that person can move into a director of operations or district manager role. What we want to do with all of our brands is identify a champion who helps develop those brands and ultimately takes ownership,” he said.

These new strategies are part of Thompson Hospitality Corporation's bigger goal, which is to hit the $1 billion sales mark. Thompson believes that will be achieved in 2025.

“Then we’ll come up with another growth target,” he said.

Thompson is full of advice for other restaurant groups striving to hit big targets themselves, including keeping an eye out for strategic partnerships, like his company’s joint venture with foodservice and facilities services company Compass Group, formed 25 years ago.

“Had we not developed that partnership with Compass, we wouldn’t be where we are today,” he said.

Also, don’t overthink things from a menu perspective.

“Some of the most successful restaurant groups out there have perfected the art of differentiation without being too different,” he said. “We have a crab cake in the majority of our brands that is the same crab cake. Once we’ve perfected the product, we keep it consistent because it helps with procurement and execution.”

His final piece of advice is to not be afraid to fail.

“Failure is part of the game in the restaurant business,” he said. “Be conservative with your balance sheet. Don’t take risks you can’t afford — keep your cash position strong — but don’t be afraid to try new things.”

—Alicia Kelso

Founded in 1992, Hal Smith Restaurants has grown to more than 80 locations in seven states across the Midwest, ranging from fine to casual dining. An Ardmore, Okla., native, Smith began his career in the restaurant industry while attending the University of Oklahoma and working at Across the Street Restaurant. In 1973, he joined Steak & Ale Restaurant Corp., then a subsidiary of Pillsbury, and was under the mentorship of Brinker International founder Norman Brinker as a manager trainee before being named president, chief operating officer and ultimately chairman and CEO, as well as a vice president of Pillsbury. His next ventures included roles as president and COO of Chili’s and chairman and CEO of Chi Chi’s Mexican Restaurants.

In 1992, he ventured out on his own and founded Hal Smith Restaurants, a restaurant management company headquartered in Norman, Okla. Brands include Charleston’s Restaurant, El Huevo Mexi-Diner, Garage Burgers & Beer, Hefner Grill, Louie’s Grill & Bar, Mahogany Prime Steakhouse, Mama Roja Mexican Kitchen, Neighborhood JA.M., Pub W, Redrock Canyon Grill, Toby Keith’s I Love This Bar & Grill, Upper Crust Wood-Fired Pizza, The Winston Plates & Spirits and Jimmy B’s Culinary + Krafted.

Smith was inducted into the Oklahoma Hall of Fame in 2017.

—Ron Ruggless

When it comes to restaurant groups, few companies have the history or scale of Lettuce Entertain You Enterprises. The Chicago-based company got its start in June 1971 when Rich Melman and Jerry Orzoff opened R.J. Grunts.

In 1973, they opened Fritz, then The Great Gritzbe’s Flying Food Show in 1974, Jonathan Livingston Seafood in 1975 and Lawrence of Oregano in 1976. In other words, it was off to the races for the fledgling company, and that has continued to be the case since. The Melman kids — R.J., Jerrod, and Molly — became more involved in 2008 when they partnered to open Hub 51. And, in 2017, R.J. Melman was named president of Lettuce, which now includes more than 80 restaurants spanning over 40 concepts in seven states and Washington, D.C.

This steady pace of expansion is simply part of the company’s DNA, R.J. Melman said during a recent interview, and it is internally driven.

“Our philosophy is about growth, and our individuals’ growth kind of pushes our restaurant growth in a lot of ways,” he said.

What does that mean? Lettuce taps partners to run its concepts, enabling them to make decisions about the day-to-day business and the future of their brands. This, Melman said, has given the company an advantage in the cutthroat world of restaurant recruitment and retention.

“Nothing has insulated us from everything that has happened, especially the past few years, but to have partners who are really dedicated to their brands and who care so much is important and has helped us with stability,” he said. “We rely on our partners to improve restaurants on a store level.”

Melman said the company also has an advantage in being an innovation hub. Lettuce doesn’t acquire restaurants; all of its concepts are created in house. In the past 12 weeks alone, the company has added two new concepts.

“We are working on new all the time. Creating new is something we just prefer to do,” he said. “We have such amazing culinary talent and front-of-house talent that there is no shortage of ideas. We probably have less time than we have ideas. I don’t worry about innovation not happening here because there’s so much we want to do.”

And, for all that has already been done throughout the company’s storied history, that diversified portfolio — from Big City Chicken and Shaw’s Crab House to the Eiffel Tower Restaurant in Las Vegas’ Paris Resort and Casino — can be counted as a third advantage from Melman’s perspective.

“At times, maybe casual dining gets bigger and fine dining goes down. Maybe urban takes a hit and suburban doesn’t. We have an ability to adjust with the times a little more because of all of our different concepts and, because we’re creating new all the time, we have the ability to fix what’s old or to re-concept places, so we’re not stuck,” he said.

At the moment, there are 10 projects on the horizon for Lettuce, including in new markets like Disney World and, in 2025, Nashville, Tenn. Melman noted, however, that there are no set growth targets.

“We don’t work like that. Being privately held, we have to be cautious in what we do. Part of that is how we structure deals with landlords ahead of time. We try to set ourselves up for success as much as possible before we open a restaurant, but we don’t have pressure to grow, so we can grow at a pace we feel is appropriate,” he said.

That approach is what he would advise other fledgling and growing restaurant groups to take as well.

“We look at the organization one restaurant at a time. I think the biggest mistake in this industry is growing without the first, second or third restaurant working first,” he said. “They think scale will solve all their problems, but it has to work at the store level first.”

—Alicia Kelso

Tao Group Hospitality runs some of the highest-grossing restaurants and lounges in the country — big-box spaces with high-concept décor, comprehensive bar programs, and high-end food for trend-
forward clientele.

Headed by co-CEOs Jason Strauss and Noah Tepperberg, the New York City-based company acquired Hakkasan Group, specializing in Chinese fine-dining in grand settings similar to those of Tao, in 2021.

It is part of Mohari Hospitality, an investment firm specializing in luxury lifestyle and hospitality venues.

Tao Group now operates 89 locations across four continents, with a heavy presence in its home market as well as Las Vegas, Miami, Chicago, and Los Angeles, but also in the Gulf States, Singapore, and London.

Apart from pan-Asian Tao and Chinese Hakkasan, other notable concepts include Beauty & Essex, with locations in New York City, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, and the Mohegan Sun casino in Connecticut. It focuses on sharable items and signature cocktails in an elegant setting.

Seven-unit Lavo specializes in Italian food, although Lavo Nightclub in Manhattan’s Midtown East is a dance club.

Tao has 18 concepts in Las Vegas, including a breakfast spot called Egghead, seven nightclubs, and two poolside “dayclubs.”

It also has several one-off restaurants such as “Japanese-styled” Sake no Hana, on New York City’s Lower East Side, and Casa Calavera, a Day-of-the-Dead-themed Mexican restaurant in Las Vegas.

—Bret Thorn