In 1971, Richard Melman opened a restaurant in the Lincoln Park neighborhood of Chicago that he called R. J. Grunts. Over the next five years, Melman opened four more restaurants in the Chicago area. By the mid-1980s, his network of restaurants employed about 2,000 people in the Chicago area and annual revenues stood at about $40 million. Among the restaurants in the Lettuce empire were Ed Debevic's, Maggiano's, and Big Bowl. By the end of the 1990s, the company had over $200 million in annual revenues and owned a total of 75 restaurants worldwide. Most of these were in the Chicago area, where Lettuce employed about 4,000 people.

This entry is part of the Encyclopedia's Dictionary of Leading Chicago Businesses (1820-2000) that was prepared by Mark R. Wilson, with additional contributions from Stephen R. Porter and Janice L. Reiff.