Barbara Lynch Gruppo: An Entrepreneurial Journey

BL Gruppo, a holding company that operated eight wildly acclaimed and highly rated restaurants, plus a catering operation, in Boston, Massachusetts was a culinary mini-empire that had continually achieved recognition as a great organization. The story of BL Gruppo was also two stories of two entrepreneurial journeys. One was the journey of Barbara Lynch, a high school dropout who, through hard work, self-education, perseverance, and entrepreneurial focus, became a world-class chef, and the other was the journey of someone with no formal business training who built a culinary business employing over 230 people and grossing close to $18 million in revenue. Now Lynch faced one of her biggest challenges: How to institutionalize her business to sustain the enjoyment of her regular customers and the opportunity for advancement by her employees, at the same time giving her management team and herself a chance to monetize and create wealth? And just as important: Should she keep directing her entrepreneurial zeal toward trying new business opportunities? Excerpt UVA-ENT-0189 Rev. Jun. 8, 2012 Barbara Lynch Gruppo: An Entrepreneurial Journey Barbara Lynch Gruppo (BL Gruppo) was a holding company that operated eight wildly acclaimed and highly rated restaurants, plus a catering operation, in Boston, Massachusetts. BL Gruppo's culinary mini-empire—award-winning French, Italian, seafood, pasta, and steak restaurants, one of the top bars in the United States, a butcher shop, a catering company, and a demonstration cooking class business—had continually achieved recognition as a great organization. But the story of BL Gruppo was actually two stories, of two entrepreneurial journeys. One was the journey of Lynch, a high school dropout and former numbers runner from the projects of South Boston who, through hard work, self-education, perseverance, and entrepreneurial focus, became a world-class chef. The other was the journey of someone with no formal business training who built a culinary business employing over 230 people and grossing close to $ 18 million in revenue. Lynch's personal story was about her dream and her struggle to fulfill it; her business story was about her growth as an entrepreneur, about making the transition from control freak to leader, building and inspiring teams, acknowledging her weaknesses, and attracting quality people to mitigate those weaknesses. With all of her success, she never lost touch with where she came from and who she was. She understood how fragile success was because, as she said, “I have to work kick-ass hard to stay good.” Now she faced what she considered one of her biggest challenges: How might she institutionalize her business to sustain the enjoyment expected by her regular customers and the opportunity for advancement by her loyal employees, while at the same time giving her management team and herself chance to monetize and create wealth? And just as important: Should she keep directing her entrepreneurial zeal toward trying new business opportunities? What was enough to satisfy both Lynch the person and Lynch the entrepreneur? . . .