Richard Melman

When a baseball Hall of Famer like Ted Williams, for example, talks about hitting, it’s worth a listen. The same holds true when Richard Melman talks about food.

Richard Melman, who has created more than 70 restaurant concepts, says "We have the ability to give people what they want, almost before they know what they want. You can call it trendsetting."

The creator of more than 70 restaurant concepts, including Ambria, Antico Posto, Café Ba-Ba-Reeba!, Everest, Foodlife, Hat Dance, Papagus Taverna, Scoozi and Shaw’s Crab House, Melman’s philosophy is simple: “The first thing I ever start on when I have have an idea is the food. If I can’t make the food work, the idea doesn’t work for me.”

At Lettuce Entertain You Enterprises Inc., the Chicago-based restaurant company Melman founded and chairs, the test kitchen is barely 20 yards from his office.

“There are always two or three chefs working with me, always making something,” he says. “There is never a week that goes by that I am not experimenting with something.”

Melman’s interest in food began in his early days at a family-owned restaurant and continued to grow when, as a teenager, he worked in fast food eateries manning a soda fountain and selling restaurant supplies.

His soda fountain gig at age 14 sheds light on his interest in food.

“I used to go to this drugstore in Chicago for sundaes. It was one of my biggest treats,” he recalls. That led to a job behind the counter. “I remember thinking about how much fun it would be to make a great strawberry sundae, one that I would really like."

While other youths might be thinking of baseball, bike riding or what to do after their soda fountain shift, Melman would ponder the make-up of a great strawberry sundae.

“I played around with strawberries. How could I get them real sweet? Or was it better to use a dark strawberry or, perhaps, a canned strawberry?” he remembers.

Strawberries aside, Melman was drawn to all foods. “Even though I wasn’t very sophisticated as a kid, I was always looking for a better hamburger,” he notes.

After realizing he wasn’t cut out to be a college student and failing to convince his father he should be a partner in the family business, Melman met Jerry Orzoff. “He believed in my ideas,” Melman says. “Meeting him was a turning point in my life.”

In 1971 the two men opened R.J. Grunts, a hip burger joint that became one of the Windy City’s hottest eateries.

“At R.J. Grunts I was always experimenting with the best way to make a burger. What was the best mustard for burgers? What was the best way to make a cottage-fried potato? I was very into whatever I was doing — I always wanted to be good,” he explains.

At Grunts Melman spent hours perfecting the hamburger. “I did it personally,” he says. “I didn’t hire a chef until about the second year, maybe even the third year that we were in business.’

When that chef came on board, Melman says the first thing they worked on was milk shakes and malteds. “I told him, ‘How many different types of wonderful malteds and milkshakes can we make?’ ”Melman remarks, recalling how the chef started laughing, not quite believing his new boss’s priorities. “But I said, ‘No, that’s what I want to start with.’ ”

So Melman and the chef made a cantaloupe shake, a date-nut shake, a fresh pineapple shake, a chocolate chip milkshake and many others. “We really got into milkshakes and malteds at R.J. Grunts, and to this day they still have great ones there,” he states.

That single-minded focus on preparing superior food has been typical of Melman’s approach as he built LEYE. He always has said that he doesn’t want to be the biggest restaurateur, just the best. Other operators with whom Melman has partnered over the years would agree that he ranks among the finest.

“As evidenced by his success, Rich Melman knows how to captivate the imagination and purchase behavior of customers across a wide range of concepts,” Tom Ryan, senior vice president of McDonald’s Corp., once told Nation’s Restaurant News. Melman is helping McDonald’s officials decide how to tweak operations by 2003.

“Rich is a great talent and restaurant visionary,” according to Ryan. “We enjoy working with him and his team.”

Jon Luther, president of Popeyes Chicken $ Biscuits, once described Melman as “a person of high integrity and strong moral character. That’s what builds trust. He’s never going to be someone who’s not going to be there when you need him.” Melman consulted with Popeyes officials on their Cajun Kitchen concept.

“The restaurant business is food, that’s the bottom line,” Melman comments. “Service is important, decor is important and marketing is important, but, to my way of thinking, if you don’t have the food, you can’t even get in the ball game.”

oing hand in hand with food is Melman’s passion for research and development. “It’s my life. There isn’t a week that goes by that something isn’t being cooked for me or I am not trying to improve something,” he states.

Consider hot fudge. “Just recently we made a hot fudge that is one of the best I’ve ever tried,” he says. “We kept making it time and time again, until we got it perfect.”

Lately, Melman has been trying to take that same fudge and put it into solid form so that people can take it to the movies. Thus far, the new idea has been a failure.

“I can’t understand why it doesn’t work,” he says. “But I don’t care if we make it 50 times; I am never discouraged when I want to do something. Sometimes I will put it away for a couple of months, but I will get back to it.”

That drive to perfection is typical of Melman.

“My goal is to always be the best that I can be,” he says. “I ask myself, ‘How can I constantly improve?’ One of the ways is by improving the food. I’m always monkeying around.”

But ‘monkeying around’ has helped LEYE stay ahead of the public’s appetite curve and remain prolific in concept development.

“We have the ability to give people what they want, almost before they know what they want,” he comments. “You can call it trendsetting. I prefer to call it the ability to listen to people.”