Dennis Riese is the one person in the world who can stand up in front of a microphone on the pitcher's mound at a sold out Yankee Stadium and announce: "You don't know me, but every single person in this stadium has eaten a burger or a donut or had a cup of coffee thanks to my family." But the point is, Dennis Riese hasn't ever said it. He hasn't had to. Business has been doing just fine, thank you very much.

For more than 50 years, the Manhattan-based Riese Organization -- by far the most powerful privately owned restaurant operation in New York -- has been happy to remain on the sidelines, quietly feeding generations of New Yorkers at the more than 1,000 restaurants they've owned and operated over the years. Riese owns a remarkable collection of familiar Manhattan eateries -- including T.G.I. Friday's, Houlihan's, Pizza Hut, KFC, Nathan's, Dunkin' Donuts and Charley O's. And that just scratches the surface. The list of the hundreds of Manhattan restaurants they have controlled has included Toots Shor, Schrafft's, Longchamps and Luchow's -- some of the most venerable names in New York dining history. Riese even owned the first Howard Johnson restaurant on the island of Manhattan.

Just take a stroll up Broadway from Riese headquarters at 34th St. and 7th Ave. Between the Lindy's, the Roy Rogers, the Houlihan's, Tequilavilles, the Dunkin' Donuts and the new Martini's on 7th Ave. and 53rd St., Riese has a property -- and often several -- on nearly every intersection. While this has been common knowledge to restaurateurs and to many in the commercial real estate business for decades,it is now slowly being brought to the consciousness of all New Yorkers. For the first time, Riese signs are sprouting up all over midtown and Times Square, announcing that all these properties are owned by a single organization, a loosely attached group of affiliated corporations. The silence about the Riese's extraordinary rise to power is about to be broken.

The Uniqueness of Manhattan Restaurants

The reason is not vanity. Riese is too smart of a businessman for that. The answer is the unique restaurant climate in Manhattan, which is like no other restaurant market in the country. In Manhattan, the restaurant business is filled with independent operations, where the owner is usually hovering around the tables. Suburban, chain-style operations have never thrived here. To truly leverage the power of his holdings, Riese felt he had to let the world know that all of his restaurants -- from El Torito in the Empire State Building to The Java Shop^sm on Broadway and 49th -- were operated by the same parent company, and that meant a quality standard no other independent operation could match. Hence the Riese emblem now on every door of every Riese restaurant.

There were compelling reasons to make the Riese name known," explains Dennis Riese, The Riese Organization's 46 year-old president. "Just ten years ago, all you had to do was open the doors and people flocked to your restaurants. That is just no longer the case today. By creating a recognizable brand -- Riese Restaurants -- we can market the entire corporation and the individual elements within it at one time, with a single budget. The idea is to create value with the single name. Promoting individual brands under 'Brand Riese' gives us the power no other restaurant group in New York City can match."

The campaign also signals the willingness of Dennis Riese, who inherited the Riese empire from his publicity-shy father and uncle, to forge his own path. Young Riese had been raised to shun publicity, and to hide the fact that the family's diverse restaurant holdings were linked in any way. "I broke the two Cardinal rules of my father and uncle," Riese explained, taking a moment to reflect on his decision from his office across 7th Avenue from Madison Square Garden. "Cardinal Rule Number One was never let anyone know that the same guy that owns the deli down the street also owns Luchow's, which we did for many years. Cardinal Rule Number Two was never focus on the family name. By pooling the purchasing power of all of our holdings, and creating the brand name Riese Restaurants, I've broken both those rules."

Building A First-class Restaurant From Scratch

The Riese name is now popping up on food court doorways and fast food restaurant displays across Manhattan. You can also find the name in top quality restaurants targeted not at tourists, but at choosy New Yorkers. Riese is making a concerted move toward full-service, high-quality restaurants.

Martini's, which opened on St. Patrick's Day in 1994, is the new Riese flagship. It's like no restaurant Irving and Murray Riese would have ever dreamed of. "They never attempted to build a quality restaurant from scratch," says Riese, who took over The Riese Organization in 1993. "My father was very much alive when I was building Martini's and he looked at me and said, `You know I would never be building what you're building here.' We both knew our name had never been associated with fine dining, and I wanted it to be. I wanted to build a restaurant that I was proud of -- and that's exactly what we did. And it's a staggeringly successful restaurant. And that's just the beginning. We are going to do many more."