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Biography of Dennis Riese
Dennis Riese is Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of the Company. The Riese Organization was founded in 1940 by Murray and Irving Riese, Dennis Riese's father and uncle. The Riese Organization is a group of corporations which owns and operates restaurants and real estate, primarily in the New York City area, and includes National Restaurants Management, Inc., the corporation which served as a holding company during the period of Irving and Murray Riese's leadership.
In 1981, Dennis recognized that a powerful new trend - franchising - was beginning to sweep the country. Through Dennis' leadership, the company embraced this trend and by 1990 the Company had doubled in size. Fueling this growth was the store-front food court concept, a Riese innovation that combined multiple franchises under a single roof. The importance of this revolutionary idea was recently acknowledged by the restaurant industry through the Nation's Restaurant News Foodservice Hall of Fame designation.
Today, The Riese Organization owns and operates 110 restaurants in the New York City area, including such nationally known branded restaurants as T.G.I. Friday's, Houlihan's, Dunkin' Donuts, KFC, Pizza Hut, and Tad's Steaks.
Through the Riese Capital Corporation, Dennis is leading the Company toward the creation of new, wholly owned restaurant concepts that meet the ever-changing needs of today's customers. In partnership with celebrated chef Richard Krause of Spago fame, Dennis opened Martini's, an upscale, rustic Italian restaurant that boasts New York City's largest all-weather sidewalk cafe. Continuing the successful momentum of Martini's is Riese's proprietary concept, The Java ShopSM, the "upscale coffee shop of the 21st Century" that combines the best of the trendy coffee bars with breakfast-to-late-night dining. To build upon an already solid foundation, four Tad's Steaks Restaurants were reacquired, together with worldwide rights to ownership of Tad's Steaks system and trademarks, and a new T.G.I. Friday's opened in the heart of Times Square. The recent the opening of Joe Franklin's Memory Lane Restaurant, in partnership with broadcast legend Joe Franklin, and The Skybox Grill & Bar across from Madison Square Garden represent the beginning of a new, aggressive development strategy.
A member of the Board of Directors of Citymeals-On-Wheels, Dennis Riese has sponsored benefits for the organization and has been an ardent supporter of its weekend and holiday meals program. Since 1994 The Riese Organization has involved almost a million and a half New Yorkers in its annual "Round-Up" campaign and contributed almost $700,000. Riese Restaurants is also the proud sponsor of the Riese Restaurants Training Center in conjunction with the New York City Department for the Aging. Additional charities Mr. Riese has been actively involved with include Encore Community Services, an organization that provides a variety of social services to the New York metropolitan senior community, Broadway Cares/Equity Fights Aids and the Phyllis Newman Women's Health Initiatives, which directs funds to AIDS-related charities. In addition, The Riese Organization underwrote the expense of artwork by globally recognized artist Peter Max in support of the Nation's Parade held in New York City, which celebrated the 50th Anniversary of the end of World War II hostilities. Dennis is also on the Dean's Council of the New York University Tisch School of Arts. The Dennis Riese Film Production Fund at the Tisch School of the Arts helped fund Keiko Ibi's student thesis film that won the Academy Award for Best Short Documentary.
Under Dennis Riese's leadership, The Riese Organization continues to grow, building upon a 60-year heritage of feeding the people of Manhattan.
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