Vermilion restaurant pulls through the recession with an expansion
Businesses built on strong financial footings survived the recession. Even little ones, for instance, the Vermilion restaurant in Chicago. Since its opening in 2003, the restaurant has grown robustly, right through the downturn.
The owner, India-born Rohini Dey, 41, academic and McKinsey & Co. consultant turned businesswoman, doesn’t disclose her recipes, but she does share her ingredients of running a successful business. “I believed in the niche. My prior background was unrelated to restaurants, it was in business consulting in the World Bank, but I strongly believed that there was an unmet niche in upscale Indian-influenced dining and I wanted to go entrepreneur,” Dey said.
She continued, “I did do my ground research for a couple of months, explored the financial and the concept viability before plunging in. I realized that restaurants have an extremely high failure rate, probably 90 percent. So it was a calculated risk.”
This risk has paid off. Dey now has two restaurants, one in Chicago’s River North and the other in Manhattan, that employ a total of 70. Each restaurant has revenue between $5 and $7 million.
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