NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The Beekman Group is proud to announce that Christopher J. Artinian has joined its investment team. Mr. Artinian will serve as Managing Director for Beekman covering its consumer industry vertical, with a special focus on restaurant, hospitality, and food and beverage investments. Mr. Artinian brings over 25 years of operational experience in the consumer segment as well as over 10 years of private equity restaurant investment experience.
Mr. Artinian joins Beekman after leading TooJay’s Gourmet Deli, Bakery, & Restaurant, where he served as the company’s President and Chief Executive Officer for its private equity firm, Branford Castle. In a short period of time, Mr. Artinian leveraged TooJay’s 36-year history to successfully remodel locations, lead menu development, and strengthen the team, all focused on top line revenue growth. Formerly, Mr. Artinian was the President and Chief Executive Officer of Smokey Bones Bar & Fire Grill, a 66-unit casual dining concept owned by Sun Capital, where he successfully led a turnaround through sales growth and margin expansion, while enhancing hospitality, service and menu offerings at the popular full-service brand.
Prior to TooJay’s and Smokey Bones, Mr. Artinian spent 15 years at Morton’s Restaurant Group, Inc., most recently as President and CEO for Castle Harlan. At Morton’s, Mr. Artinian guided the company’s growth to become the largest fine dining brand in the world, and played an integral role in leading and completion of a successful sale of Morton’s in early 2012. Upon joining Morton’s in 1995 in the pantry kitchen as a prep cook, Mr. Artinian held various operations roles and steadily rose through the ranks from Assistant General Manager of Morton’s in New York City to Regional Director of Operations. Mr. Artinian was then promoted to Vice President of Operations, where he facilitated the opening of many new Morton’s units domestically and internationally, and then promoted to CEO in 2010.
Throughout his career Mr. Artinian has been recognized for leveraging his deep operational experience in developing winning strategies and exceptional teams. Passionate about the restaurant business, Mr. Artinian has provided key insight and commentary on the industry to numerous media outlets including CNBC, Fox Business and Bloomberg News, and is a guest speaker of industry conferences and events.
The addition of Mr. Artinian to Beekman’s team reinforces the firm’s focus on the consumer and restaurant industries. Beekman recently completed the majority recapitalization of Another Broken Egg, a franchisor and operator of full-service restaurant cafes serving southern-inspired breakfast, brunch and lunch options. Beekman’s consumer investments also include Teds Café Escondido, a full service better Mexican restaurant concept, New Vision Theatres, a 17-unit movie theater circuit, and TBG Food Acquisition Corp., one of the largest Dunkin Donuts franchisee platforms. Mr. Artinian is expected to contribute to sourcing new consumer investments as well as helping to manage Beekman’s current portfolio.
About The Beekman Group
The Beekman Group is a leading private equity firm, based in New York, dedicated to bringing financial and operational resources to lower middle-market companies. Beekman's team consists of experienced private equity professionals, as well as a select group of Industry Advisors, who are leading executives in Beekman's targeted industry segments. This Industry Advisor focused approach to investing is the cornerstone of Beekman's investment strategy -- creating value through accelerating growth and transformational change in partnership with small and middle-market management teams. For more information, please visit www.thebeekmangroup.com.
