Stephen Starr learned how to hustle on the Atlantic City boardwalk. Now, he's back.

"But for restaurateur Stephen Starr, this stretch of wooden planks is more than a backdrop for a family summer vacation. It's where he learned how to do business. Starr worked three summers as a teenager in one of the boardwalk shops, thrusting anything he could - T-shirts, trinkets - into tourists' clamoring hands. "I learned everything about business from being on that boardwalk," he said. "You saw the best and the worst of people, the best and worst of yourself. And we worked 14 hours a day, six days a week.""

"Now, the James Beard Award-winning restaurateur who helped turn Philadelphia into a dining destination is going back to his roots by conceptualizing two new restaurants on the Atlantic City boardwalk. A Philadelphia native, Starr owns the eponymous STARR Restaurants, which operates 43 restaurants in six cities, including Philadelphia, New York, and Washington, DC. Starr is often credited with transforming Philadelphia's dining scene from the 1990s through the early 2010s, turning it from a city known for cheesesteaks into a culinary destination by fusing elevated cuisine with the theatrical flair he developed as a concert promoter."

Stephen Starr learned business skills during three summers working on the Atlantic City boardwalk, selling T-shirts and trinkets while working long hours. He is now conceptualizing two new restaurants on that boardwalk. Starr owns STARR Restaurants with 43 locations across six cities including Philadelphia, New York, and Washington, DC. He helped transform Philadelphia's dining scene from a cheesesteak reputation to a culinary destination by blending elevated cuisine with theatrical presentation, beginning with the Continental in 1995 and later restaurants like Buddakan and Morimoto. Starr won the James Beard Award for Outstanding Restaurateur in 2017. Critics have sometimes said his restaurants emphasize theme and theatrics over culinary substance.

Read at Business Insider