At age 15, Rich Melman worked as a soda jerk at his father's Chicago diner. Fourteen years later, he created the restaurant company Lettuce Entertain You, a job that has allowed him to try nearly every restaurant job, except chef. ("I don't cook well," he says).

Melman is one of the nation's most successful restaurateurs. His company operates 70 restaurants nationwide, such as Shaw's! and Tru in Chicago; Big Bowl in Chicago, Minneapolis, and now Atlanta; Cafe Ba-Ba-Reeba and Mon Ami Gabi, in Chicago and Las Vegas. Melman knows restaurants. And he knows how they—along with Americans' tastes—have changed over the years.

Q. How have diners changed in your 36 years in the business?
A. People have become more sophisticated. They travel, there are loads of TV food channels, and cookbooks are gigantic sellers. Twenty years ago when we opened the Spanish Cafe Ba-Ba-Reeba, people thought it was Mexican. Tapas were an unknown in the United States. People are much more experimental today.

Q. Where do you find inspiration for your restaurant ideas?
A. I pay attention to what people say. In the 1980s, I remember hearing people say, 'I wish I could get just a bite of something instead of a whole dessert.' That made me think of mini-desserts, and we still serve them today at many of our restaurants.

Q. What is your favorite food?
A. Give me great bread, great pasta, and a glass of wine, and I'm set. There's an art to making simple food great, and that's what I enjoy.

Q. How do you reconcile eating out with the increased interest in health and nutrition?
A. Keep attuned to what's happening in the medical field. I think the current interest in steak coincides with (the advent of) cholesterol-lowering drugs. If it didn't, we would eat less steak. You have to give people more choices than ever before because they want to customize meals. People want healthy food sources.