Richard Mott's first foray into hospitality came in the 1980s at the University of Chicago, where he began running a coffee shop in the basement of the business school while still a grad student. By the time he graduated, he had grown that single coffee shop into four locations across campus.
Mott is a longtime Chicago-based restaurateur. His farm-to-table restaurant, North Pond, has been operating since the late 1990s. More recently, he has expanded his business to include Spark Shared Kitchen, a catering facility and incubator for food entrepreneurs.
He knows a great deal about the practical economics of restaurants and the hospitality industry at large. Across his decades-long career in the Chicago scene, he has seen just about everything. On a recent trip to Chicago, Bloomberg sat down with Mott to discuss the ever-increasing price of food and labor, why diners are drinking less, and the expected and unexpected reasons restaurants so often fail.
The conversation offers a rare look at the realities behind keeping a restaurant open for nearly three decades in one of America's most competitive dining cities.
Source: Bloomberg Markets · Summarized by HeadlinesBriefing