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Richard Melman is Founder, Chairman
and CEO of Lettuce Entertain You Enterprises, Inc., a Chicago-based
corporation that owns and licenses nearly 75 restaurants nationwide
and in Japan.
The restaurant business has been Melman's life work beginning with
his early days in a family-owned restaurant, and later as a teenager
working in fast food eateries, at a soda fountain, and selling restaurant
supplies. After realizing that he wasn't cut out to be a college
student, and failing to convince his father that he should be made
a partner in the family business, Melman met Jerry A. Orzoff, a
man who immediately and unconditionally believed in Melman's ability
to create and run restaurants. In 1971, the two opened R.J. Grunts,
a hip burger joint that soon became one of the hottest restaurants
in Chicago. Here, Melman and Orzoff presented food differently and
with a sense of humor, creating the youthful and fun restaurant
which was a forerunner in the trend towards dining out as entertainment
that swept this country in the early '70's. |
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