Levy Restaurants CEO Andy Lansing shares advice on hiring and keeping staff as Jake Melnick’s Corner Tap celebrates its 20th anniversary

Andy Lansing has worked at Levy Restaurants for the past 34 years, and has been CEO since 2004. He came about that role via the unusual route of being hired as the company’s general counsel. Being a naturally curious person, he poked his head around different aspects of the business and learned so much about the company’s operations that he became chief operating officer in 1995 after spending four years as its executive vice president. Levy is now a far-reaching company, as well as a division of the Compass Group, that operates more than 200 venues, including restaurants, but also many stadiums and other event spaces, and it also provides the foodservice at music festivals and similar celebrations. The company is also doing some celebrating of its own with the 20th anniversary of Jake Melnick’s Corner Tap, an everybody-knows-your-name type of tavern in Chicago. Lansing discussed that milestone, as well as the keys to its success, including understanding, as he puts it, that ‘It’s more exciting to eat in a bar than drink in a restaurant.” He also shares tips on how to hire and retain employees and why running restaurants makes Levy so successful at running the foodservice in stadiums.