What if the fastest way to become a great independent operator is to go work for a chain?
Al Lucas spent 21 years at Chart House, starting as a dishwasher and leaving as a vice president. He took that to Stephen Starr, then to Defined Hospitality, where Kalaya just won Outstanding Restaurant at the 2026 James Beard Awards. When a young cook asked him for career advice, Al told him to get out of independent restaurants as fast as possible.
In this conversation, we get into the fundamentals most independents never get taught, how Al and his partners choose who is worth building a restaurant around, and why the room at the Beard Awards is full of operators who will be gone within a year.
If you learned this business by figuring it out alone, this will show you what you missed.
That’s Al Lucas. To learn more about Defined Hospitality, visit definedhospitality.com.
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