From Red Lobster to Running Some of New York’s Marquee Restaurants

He landed at Johnson Wales University in Providence, R.I., when he was 17, away from home the first time. For a kid who had seen a cow only on television, learning to break down half an animal was exhilarating, he said. His family couldn’t carry all the costs, so he worked in restaurants to pay the bills.

After graduating in 1983, he went on to earn a bachelor’s degree from Widener University and a master’s degree in business from the University of Texas at Dallas.

He spent 14 years running TGI Fridays, and was chief operating officer for the Boston-based Legal Sea Foods chain. Then he joined the restaurant giant Darden, which owns Olive Garden, LongHorn Steakhouse and, at the time, Red Lobster. (The corporation sold the chain to Golden Gate, a California private equity firm, in 2014 for $2.1 billion.)

Mr. Wade acknowledges that his résumé worried some customers and staff members of the Union Square group. “I was cognizant that was a fear or concern — that Chip is going to turn us into a chain,” Mr. Wade said in an interview.

Not that Mr. Meyer is a stranger to chain restaurants. The little hot-dog stand he opened to help revitalize Madison Square Park in 2001 is now Shake Shack, a publicly traded company with more than 400 locations. Mr. Meyer is chairman of its board.

Mr. Meyer said Shake Shack and Mr. Wade’s hiring are examples of how the historic gap between two camps in the restaurant universe has shrunk. For decades, he said, people running independent fine-dining restaurants thought chain operators had no taste in food or décor, while chain owners thought those restaurateurs had no idea how to run an efficient restaurant.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/30/dining/chip-wade-union-square-hospitality-group.html