Operators can reach the top if they’re willing to fall downOperators can reach the top if they’re willing to fall down

One mantra of many successful people is: “Don’t be afraid to fail.” It is a common message that I am sure resonates with multitudes of operators throughout this industry.


I recently spoke with Nation’s Restaurant News Golden Chain winner Steele Platt, the chairman of Yard House Restaurants, for a profile that appears on page 46 of this issue. He began his foodservice career in Denver in the mid-1980s, running through three separate concepts and a bout of personal bankruptcy in the early ’90s before starting Yard House in 1996. 


Platt credits the lessons of his early career with helping him focus and concentrate on one concept, growing it slowly and surely. He dove headfirst into running restaurants right out of hospitality school, and he...