R.J. Melman, CEO of Lettuce Entertain You restaurant group, shares his family's Chicago immigrant story and the growth of their business from a single Lincoln Park location to over 120 restaurants nationwide. He discusses his commitment to supporting the Chicago Police Department and why he believes business leaders have a civic responsibility to prioritize community safety.
Mariam (00:00)
tragedies can hit close to home.
RJ Melman (00:02)
From 2020 to 2022, we had four team members of various different roles, all killed in gun violence.
Mariam (00:13)
That's R.J. Melman, CEO of Lettuce Entertain You. This is Roll Call. I'm Miriam Sobh. I recently caught up with Mr. Melman to learn more about his ties to Chicago and why, he says, it's crucial to not take policing for granted. We like to just get right into it. Can you tell us about yourself and your ties to Chicago?
RJ Melman (00:33)
I currently oversee a company called Lettuce Entertain You, a company that was started by my dad in 1971 with our first restaurant called R.J. Gruntz in Lincoln Park, still there to this day. But my tie to Chicago is that I was born and raised here. My dad was born in Logan Square. Grew up in a very, very lower, lower middle class family, one bedroom apartment with his brother and his parents. My mom grew up on a farm about an hour and a half south of the city. I was raised in the city till I was seven years old. Moved out to the suburbs when apartment life was a little bit ⁓ more challenging for three kids. And ⁓ moved back downtown when I was 18 or after college really. So have been in the city ever since. And we are a restaurant group that has about 120 restaurants across the country. But a good chunk of them are in Illinois, and the biggest chunk being in Chicago. Our headquarters is in Chicago on the north side. And I live in the city. I raise my kids in the city. We are proud to be here. And I think that's is really our tie is like how intertwined we have these brick and mortar businesses, these restaurants that we continue to build here and are here. So I would guess that Lettuce Entertain You has about 4,000 employees in the city of Chicago. So maybe it's a little bit less, but.
Mariam (02:05)
How did you get involved in the restaurant business?
RJ Melman (02:08)
I was like everyone, you're a grade schooler, you're a high schooler, and you're trying to figure out what you're going to do next. You're trying to figure out college. And I went to the University of Kansas. I thought probably for a short period of time I was going to go into law. I thought that was interesting. But I got to college. And right before that, I got a summer job cooking at one of our restaurants, one of my dad's restaurants. And I fell in love with cooking and I was working as a prep cook at this place, going in at six in the morning, you know, coming back at four in the afternoon, being exhausted. And I knew like probably I wasn't going to do more than this, this industry. then through all the way through college, I worked during college. worked in summers. I worked all sorts of roles, bartending, serving, food running, cooking. And when I was 22 and graduated college, I realized like I wanted to pursue a life of being a sous chef. So I, or a chef, and I did that for a while. worked at one of our restaurants, Wildfire. I moved out to Minnesota to help open one there. I went out to Napa Valley after that, and I worked outside the company at a restaurant called Mustard's Grill with a amazing chef named Cindy Paulson. And then by the time I turned 25 or so, I realized that, maybe this wasn't going to be the thing I did forever. But I loved the business and I started managing restaurants ground up, like, you know, the young manager on the floor and kind of worked my way up, became a general manager. And then in 2008, my brother and I, he's four years younger. And then my sister, who's six years younger than me, we opened our first restaurant together called Hub 51.
That was sort of the beginning of us opening a bunch of restaurants. I took over the company as president in 2017, CEO last year. And, you know, been kind of doing this since I've probably opened 40, 50 restaurants since 2008 as part of the company. And just having a lot of fun. I mean, I have...the best job in the world. get to work around food, get to work around and meet interesting people, I get to really... It's a dream job and I couldn't ask for anything better.
Mariam (04:45)
You mentioned earlier how your parents came from very simple means and ⁓ my understanding is that your father helped to kind of start and launch this business to ⁓ the amazing success that it is now. Can you tell me a little bit more about your father and how this all came about?
RJ Melman (05:03)
My grandparents, his parents, were both immigrants here. His mom moved here from Russia in the 30s, his early 30s. ⁓ His father from Poland, and maybe it was even in the late 20s. And so they move here. They actually meet on Oak Street Beach, my grandparents, which is, I think, pretty cute, ⁓ when they were very young and they end up getting married. My grandfather owned a little, him and his brother, so my great uncle, owned a little deli. Wasn't much of a business. On the north side on Belmont, or I'm sorry, yeah, on Belmont and...Halstead area, something like that. And I never saw it. It wasn't open when I was alive. And my dad worked there. They had a couple locations over the time, never more than one at a time, and he was managing the restaurant for them. Like said, it wasn't like a super serious business, and my dad asked if he could buy into it. And his dad and his uncle said, no, you're too immature. And ⁓Or, you know, said, you know, we're not looking for another partner in this business. And my dad, I think, knew at that point that he had to go off on his own. And a short period of time later, he opens R.J. Gruntz with his best friend, guy named Jerry Orzhov. Unfortunately, Jerry passed away pretty young. He passed away in like 1982, so about 10 years after the start of the company. But it wasn't a company. It was a restaurant, you know, and one restaurant did Knock on wood phenomenally well. it was probably a bigger success than either of them had ever dreamed. And one restaurant turned to two and two turned to three and kind of goes that way.
Mariam (07:06)
Wow, that's really fascinating. And it's interesting to me because I've probably been a patron at some of these restaurants and never stopped to think about the history or where they began because there's an assumption that, it must be some big corporation, but there's a really real story of how it all started.
RJ Melman (07:25)
Yeah, and not just like .. still involved. I talked to my dad on my way here. We talk every day. He's still super active in the business. is the founder and chairman can kind of come and go as he pleases and wants to get involved. And he is an amazing sounding board. He is an amazing supporter of us. He gives us leeways to run the business. And then he also gives us, you know, advice and tough advice. And you can't ask for a better mentor than him. My brother and sister and I work together are all partners still to this day. My sister oversees a lot of training for the company. My brother runs a division of the company that we sort of started together. And then I'm generally responsible for the whole organization.
Mariam (08:11)
How has working all those ⁓ jobs, those really tough tasks like server and cook and bartenders, all of those different things, how has that shaped the way you view things?
RJ Melman (08:25)
It's such an interesting business. I meet people all the time that want to get into the restaurant industry. And those people, I think it looks really glamorous. Maybe it's because of TV. You watch The Bear and I want to get in here. Or I watch cooking shows and you watch Top Chef and you're like, my god, it's so fun. And it is fun. But then you remember that you are working when people are off. You're entertaining on holidays when people are doing their own thing. You know, it's largely nights unless you're picking a role. You know, maybe there's a little luncheon restaurant in the loop, but those are fewer and far between. You know, to make a living doing this, you're probably going to have to be open for dinner and weekends and all those things. So it is glamorous on the outside, but tough on the inside. And everyone I meet who wants to get into this, I'm like, have you worked as a server? Have you done this before? And if they say no, said, why don't you, before you jump into this business, why don't you just go get a job doing something in it? It is physical. It is in person. But at the same time, it's pretty simple. We have about 100 partners in the company, and those are people who that have largely been homegrown, risen up through the ranks. Everyone sort of in these, I would say, generally what you would call like a lower role or a more entry level role or an hourly role, you sort of realize that this is the business for you. You self-select. And I think just like probably in policing that there are people who are drawn to it. There are people who are drawn to hospitality and say, I don't want to be behind a desk all day. I don't want to be, I want to talk to people. I want a little bit of chaos. I want something that changes every day. And I love that, but the only way you find out is if you go and do it. And you gotta love it. You gotta love taking care of people. You gotta love good food. If you don't love those things, it's really hard.
Mariam (10:28)
You mentioned how policing is somewhat similar in the terms that, you know, people gravitate towards a career that they're able to help people. They want to do good. And full disclosure here, you've been a huge supporter of the Chicago Police Department. And I'm wondering where did that come from? The desire to help out, especially in a field that is up and down with public opinion.
RJ Melman (10:54)
You know, if you had to think of a public service job or a government related job, I don't think there is a more difficult job than being a police officer. You know, I think about, especially in today's age where everything is recorded, everything, you know, there's a camera in your face or a phone in your face. And I feel so much sympathy for the officers because You you have a bad day at work as an officer. Someone gets shot. And it's like you are all over the news. You are blasted every which way. You're protested. You know, I think that someone has a bad day at work at the fire department. And it's not nearly as, you know, there's obviously loss of life and there's danger. But you don't have that public scrutiny on did you act right?
You know, if a fire burns down a building, you don't see a lot of stories written, as far as I can tell, on the fire departments screwed up and the building burned because they didn't do it right. You know, the story about the police is a lot more damaging. Like, a police officer made a mistake, then you have these protests and you have this thing. So I'm super sympathetic to the position you'd be in. It is one of the hardest jobs to put your life, you know, in danger.
I I grew up at a time where there was officer friendly visiting the school. And granted, I probably have a different interaction than a lot of people, but the safety of the community is the thing that you can't take for granted. People being safe and going out is directly correlational, I think, to the success of my business, to the success of our company, to how I feel downtown, to where you want to live. And the role that police provide and play in doing that is so important.
Mariam (13:01)
It's clear you have great compassion for police officers and it's understandable to want safety for your family, customers, businesses. Is there anything else that drives this sense of wanting to make sure everyone is safe?
RJ Melman (13:18)
You know, I don't tell this story a lot. From 2020 to 2022, we had four team members of various different roles, all killed in gun violence. And you got to think that a lot of it was preventable. I remember one young woman, she was a manager, maybe 29, 30 years old with us. And, you know, she was caught in the crossfire of a shooting near her home. Great, vibrant young manager with us. You're going to the meet the parents, you know, afterwards and give your sympathies and you you're kind of hosting memorial services and you're like, this is just terrible and so preventable. And I think that's, that time really clicked for me that, you know, the support of CPD or police in general, I would say not just in Chicago, but in other cities.
Mariam (13:49)
It's gotta be tough.
RJ Melman (14:17)
It’s so important and we have a civic responsibility to our own employees to make sure that they are safe ⁓ and our guests. That is what drives everything. That feeling of safety is what makes people go to dinner, that have them come downtown, that have them go shopping, that have them go feel good in their neighborhoods. And for employees and team members, that safety on their public transportation or driving or their Ubers home and to work. There's no price that doesn't make that worth it.
Mariam (14:53)
I really appreciate you sharing that personal story. ⁓ It's got to be hard having your employees killed needlessly. How do you push through after something like that?
RJ Melman (15:06)
I mean, that's the weird part about life is that it does march forward. You do have loss. And when you're around for 54 years, things do move forward. That's the, that is the reality. There is a response in organization and I have a responsibility to move forward that we keep going when there is tragedy. And that's how you have to act in life. And the way you move forward is that you hopefully that the people who are remaining are cared for and have support that they need to get through grieving or crises that happen. ⁓ there's so much stuff going on that you have to look forward. There's no choice. ⁓
Mariam (15:49)
You’re very modest person when it comes to your accomplishments and contributions. And I hate to put you on the spot here, but my understanding is that you donated meals for the officers working the DNC. You've generously donated ⁓ meals for the retiree luncheons that we've had. Probably a million other things that we don't know about that you've done for the men and women of this police department. Why do you feel ⁓ compelled to support?
RJ Melman (16:18)
I don't know, it just feels like it's the right thing to do. I don't think it's unique to us. think the city of Chicago is amazing. I'm putting on not my personal hat, but the hat of a business leader. The city has an amazing history, think, civic responsibility from the corporate world. And I know my friends who are heads of companies feel that way. And I just feel like that's the right thing to do is to support this organization. Like I said, the safety of our guests, our employees, our team members, my family could not be more important. And what better way to support that than to help the people that are literally directly responsible for public safety.
Mariam (17:10)
You were recently awarded the Richard J. Daly Medal. ⁓ What was that feeling like?
RJ Melman (17:17)
So I have a four-year-old at home. He's so cute and funny. And I said, I'm winning a big award today from the police department. And he started crying. I said, why are you crying? He goes, are you moving out of the house to go join the police? And I said, no, no, no, I'm not leaving. I'm just winning an award. He thought I was moving maybe into the headquarters. I didn't know. I said, no, no, I'm not moving.
I teared up at that event I mean, and it's like... It's such an amazing recognition, amazing feeling to be recognized. But at the same time, under no circumstance am I a hero. Like the men and women of the police department put themselves in danger every day. Like it is a job that you cannot take for granted that you are going to be safe in your own role. And to think that I deserve an award over those people is sort of silly, especially at you know, at a banquet that is honoring the fallen officers and there's just literally no replacement for that. So, an incredibly emotional honor, incredibly kind of the force to give me that award. ⁓ Hard to feel that you ever deserve it, especially in light of the other people that are recognized at that banquet.
Mariam (18:50)
Well, ⁓ before we kind of wrap up here, what are you looking forward to? What's, what's maybe something coming down the pipeline?
RJ Melman (19:00)
Well, personally, we're opening a bunch of restaurants in the next few months. So I have a restaurant opening in two weeks in Nashville. Uh, another one here in Chicago called crying tiger. That's going to open in the middle of October or so. And then, uh, back to Nashville for a restaurant in November, a second restaurant there. So we have a very busy fall. I'm looking forward to getting through that. Um, and I'm looking forward to Chicago bear season, not a surprise. I'm a giant football fan. So Maybe they'll Yeah, maybe they'll win. the only, that's the, you stay in Chicago, right? Because you say, I'm going to tough it out through winter because summer is amazing. And the only good thing about summer coming to a close is that football starts, in my opinion. those are my, ⁓ my very simple personal goals is to watch some football, open some restaurants and enjoy the fall.
Mariam (20:00)
And that was R.J. Melman, CEO of Lettuce Entertain You. Roll Call is a production of the Bureau of Patrol. I'm Mariam Sobh Make sure to subscribe to Roll Call wherever you get your podcasts and never miss an episode.