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Articles on companies that have grown by building an impressive portfolio of restaurant concepts.

2018 RH 25: Big Night Entertainment Group

Operating high-profile venues but remaining employer of choice

Bret Thorn, Senior Food Editor

September 24, 2018

1 Min Read
Operating high-profile venues but remaining employer of choice
The braised lamb shank at Explorateur, a mixed-use concept that opened last year.Big Night Entertainment

RH25_2018_200x200_3.jpgThe 2018 class of Restaurant Hospitality's annual RH 25 looks at bold moves made by multiconcept operators — the companies that are crossing segments, shifting operations, building big or pivoting in some way. There is no ranking. These are companies to watch. See all concepts >>

HQ: Boston

Leadership: Founders Ed Kane, Joe Kane and Randy Greenstein

Systemwide sales FY2017: “We are in the $80 million range with projection of crossing $100 million next year.”

Concepts: CBS Sporting Club, Empire, Explorateur, Grand, Guy Fieri’s Foxwoods, High Rollers, Red Lantern (2), Scorpion Bar (3) and Shrine

rh-25-big-night-entertainment-group-2.gif

Grand

This 12-year-old company was founded by nightclub veterans Ed and Joe Kane and marketing-and-entertainment specialist Randy Greenstein. They started by opening nightclubs, first in Boston and then at the Foxwoods Resort Casino in Mashantucket, Conn., as well as clubby, design-forward restaurants such as pan-Asian venues Red Lantern and, more recently, Empire, as well as Gothic-Mexican concept Scorpion Bar.

Last year they opened Explorateur, facing Boston Common, a mixed-use concept with a coffee-and-pastry counter, a dining room, a large bar and private room, and in July they partnered with New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft and CBS to take over management of gastropub-cum-sports bar CBS Sporting Club in Foxborough, Mass., home of the Patriots.

Despite their high-concept venues, the Kanes, whose father owned an Irish pub, remain grounded in the straightforward hospitality of serving people by treating their staff well. The Boston Globe named Big Night the top place to work in 2016, citing the company’s approach of paying people well and making sure that all staff members can be heard.

Next: Rise & Shine Restaurant Group

Previous: Front Burner Restaurants L.P.

About the Author

Bret Thorn

Senior Food Editor, Nation's Restaurant News

Senior Food & Beverage Editor

Bret Thorn is senior food & beverage editor for Nation’s Restaurant News and Restaurant Hospitality for Informa’s Restaurants and Food Group, with responsibility for spotting and reporting on food and beverage trends across the country for both publications as well as guiding overall F&B coverage. 

He is the host of a podcast, In the Kitchen with Bret Thorn, which features interviews with chefs, food & beverage authorities and other experts in foodservice operations.

From 2005 to 2008 he also wrote the Kitchen Dish column for The New York Sun, covering restaurant openings and chefs’ career moves in New York City.

He joined Nation’s Restaurant News in 1999 after spending about five years in Thailand, where he wrote articles about business, banking and finance as well as restaurant reviews and food columns for Manager magazine and Asia Times newspaper. He joined Restaurant Hospitality’s staff in 2016 while retaining his position at NRN. 

A magna cum laude graduate of Tufts University in Medford, Mass., with a bachelor’s degree in history, and a member of Phi Beta Kappa, Thorn also studied traditional French cooking at Le Cordon Bleu Ecole de Cuisine in Paris. He spent his junior year of college in China, studying Chinese language, history and culture for a semester each at Nanjing University and Beijing University. While in Beijing, he also worked for ABC News during the protests and ultimate crackdown in and around Tiananmen Square in 1989.

Thorn’s monthly column in Nation’s Restaurant News won the 2006 Jesse H. Neal National Business Journalism Award for best staff-written editorial or opinion column.

He served as president of the International Foodservice Editorial Council, or IFEC, in 2005.

Thorn wrote the entry on comfort food in the Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America, 2nd edition, published in 2012. He also wrote a history of plated desserts for the Oxford Companion to Sugar and Sweets, published in 2015.

He was inducted into the Disciples d’Escoffier in 2014.

A Colorado native originally from Denver, Thorn lives in Brooklyn, N.Y.

Bret Thorn’s areas of expertise include food and beverage trends in restaurants, French cuisine, the cuisines of Asia in general and Thailand in particular, restaurant operations and service trends. 

Bret Thorn’s Experience: 

Nation’s Restaurant News, food & beverage editor, 1999-Present
New York Sun, columnist, 2005-2008 
Asia Times, sub editor, 1995-1997
Manager magazine, senior editor and restaurant critic, 1992-1997
ABC News, runner, May-July, 1989

Education:
Tufts University, BA in history, 1990
Peking University, studied Chinese language, spring, 1989
Nanjing University, studied Chinese language and culture, fall, 1988 
Le Cordon Bleu Ecole de Cuisine, Cértificat Elémentaire, 1986

Email: bret.thorn@informa.com

Social Media:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bret-thorn-468b663/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bret.thorn.52
Twitter: @foodwriterdiary
Instagram: @foodwriterdiary

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