Laurence Mindel

Laurence "Larry" Mindel is one of the most influential figures in modern California restaurant history, with more than five decades as a restaurant creator, developer and operator. He began in the food business as a University of Michigan student selling instant coffee to retailers in the Ann Arbor area, and in 1963 — reportedly at age 26 with $36 in the bank — he bought San Francisco's venerable Caswell Coffee Company (founded 1829) for $1 million. In 1970 he co-founded Spectrum Foods, a restaurant holding company whose portfolio included influential Bay Area concepts such as Ciao, Prego (credited as an originator of California-style pizza), MacArthur Park, Guaymas and Harry's Bar, plus Chianti in Los Angeles.

After Saga Corp. acquired Spectrum Foods in 1984, Mindel served as president of Saga's restaurant group, directing more than 200 restaurants generating over $375 million in combined revenue. When Saga was itself acquired in 1986, Mindel acquired Il Fornaio — then a struggling bakery concept — and rebuilt it into an upscale Italian restaurant-and-bakery chain. Under his leadership Il Fornaio completed an IPO on the NASDAQ National Market in 1997 (ticker: ILFO), reached roughly $124 million in annual revenue by 2000, and grew to about 22 locations across California, Nevada, Colorado, Washington and Virginia. The company was taken private in 2001, and Mindel stepped back from daily operations around that time. (Il Fornaio was later acquired by Japan's Create Restaurants Holdings in 2019.)

Since 2003, Mindel has focused on personal, chef-driven ventures near his longtime home in Sausalito, opening Poggio Trattoria at the Casa Madrona Hotel as "the ultimate expression of his passion for Italy." He went on to co-found Copita Tequileria y Comida in Sausalito in 2012 (developed alongside cookbook author/chef Joanne Weir following a margarita competition) and Convivo, a "nomad Italian" restaurant in Santa Barbara, with a further Copita planned for San Jose. He has lived in Sausalito for some fifty years.

His standing in the industry is reflected in significant honors: he received the International Foodservice Manufacturers Association's Gold Plate / Foodservice Operator of the Year award in 1998, and was the first American and first person of non-Italian descent to receive the Italian government's Caterina de' Medici Medal (1985) for preserving Italian culinary heritage abroad. Since 2012 he has also served as an independent director on the board of The Cheesecake Factory Incorporated.

• Invests his expertise and capital primarily in building, acquiring and turning around restaurant companies rather than in startups via priced seed/angel rounds — the consistent pattern across Spectrum Foods, Il Fornaio, Poggio, Copita and Convivo.
• Favors authentic, regionally rooted full-service concepts — Italian (Il Fornaio, Poggio, Convivo) and Mexican (Copita) — built around culinary excellence and craft (bakeries, house-made programs, named executive chefs).
• Partners closely with strong chefs and operators (e.g., co-developing Copita with chef Joanne Weir; Poggio with executive chef Benjamin Balesteri).
• Stated motivation in his own words: *"I'm a restaurateur, mostly because I love people. I knew I wanted to be around those that aspired to have fun"* — emphasizing hospitality, community and the people side of the business over pure financial engineering.
• Brings public-company and governance perspective from decades as a CEO/chairman and as a sitting Cheesecake Factory board director, signaling a focus on durable, scalable, well-run operations.