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Bob Chinn talks to customers at his restaurant in 1999. A “serial entrepreneur,” Mr. Chinn began opening restaurants. One of his early ventures, in Miami Beach, quickly failed, but he carried on in the Chicago suburbs. The restaurant expanded and became the fourth top grossing independent restaurant in the United States, Chinn's bio said.
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Milwaukee Ave. in Wheeling, announced Chinn's death on Facebook on Friday evening. So he decided to branch out on his own with Bob Chinn’s Crab House. To ensure that things don’t go downhill at the restaurant Chinn, now 89, has decided he can’t retire (though he does spend six months out of each year in Hawaii).
How Bob Chinn's Crab House Became The Highest-Grossing Restaurant In The U.S.
“He lived life to the fullest in every situation,” said Carly LeTourneau, Mr. Chinn’s granddaughter. By the age of 14, Chinn was delivering Chinese food himself. He went on to serving three years in the Army during World War II, according to the restaurant. CHICAGO (CBS) -- Bob Chinn, the namesake of the iconic crab house in Wheeling, has died.
Bob Chinn's Crab House
Chinn has 3,000 pounds of fresh seafood flown in every day. Guests can check out the cargo bills while they wait for tables. The restaurant earns a 24 (out of 30) for food from Zagat and loyalists crow about the swordfish, of course the crabs and even the steak. What started out as a 250-seat restaurant has grown to 700 seats serving breakfast, lunch and dinner. Diners are shuffled through several wait stations but rarely loose their cool.
The catering business took off, but three years later Chinn decided to move on leaving the business to his brother-in-law. Chinn, whose parents immigrated from China, dropped out of high school to join the Army in World War II and has been working ever since. His first business was supplying patterned plates to Chinese restaurants. From there he moved on to selling equipment, remodeling and eventually helping his family members open restaurants. Jean Chinn, Mr. Chinn’s wife of 62 years, died in 2016.
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After years of planning and development, the father/daughter team negotiated the purchase of a shuttered building on Milwaukee Avenue in Wheeling. The 175-seat “Bob Chinn’s Crab House” Restaurant opened two days before Christmas in 1982 and was an instant success. In the late 80’s, Bob Chinn’s opened additional seating on the porch and eventually became a 650-seat restaurant. After a fire damaged his parents' restaurant, Chinn salvaged the kitchen equipment and started a carryout business called the Golden Pagoda in Evanston, according to the crab house.
Bob Chinn's Crab House
Bob Chinn was 59 years old when he started the business that would come to define him. His restaurant tops our list of the nation's highest-grossing restaurants with an estimated $24 million in annual revenue. Numbers were provided by CHD Expert and do not include alcohol sales. It had 700 seats and served 2,500 meals a day, flying in 3,000 pounds of fresh seafood daily. Nothing was off the table — a Chinese takeout spot in Wilmette that also served pizza?
How Bob Chinn's Crab House Became The Highest-Grossing Restaurant In The U.S.
He is survived by his brother Howard Chinn, daughter Marilyn Chinn LeTourneau, son Michael Chinn, seven grandchildren and 10 great-grandchildren. Outside of the crab house, Mr. Chinn lived spontaneously — driving his family from the horse track in Albany, New York, to Montreal once for dinner because he heard about a good barbecue spot there. Or going the opposite way to take his granddaughter to see an MTV show being filmed in Times Square. His parents owned an Uptown restaurant called the New Wilson Village, and they lived about two blocks north of Wrigley Field, the restaurant said. Chinn came up with the idea for Bob Chinn’s Crab House after traveling the world and tasting the best seafood from Alaska to Australia. Everywhere he went he talked to fishermen and suppliers, even going out on crab boats in Alaska, to persuade them to send their food to his outposts in Illinois.
Bob Chinn's Crab House
In Honolulu he has a company that scours the fish market every morning and overnights the best picks to Bob Chinn’s. The Wheeling restaurant took in $24 million a year in food sales alone and was named by Forbes magazine as the highest-grossing restaurant in the nation in 2012. Mr. Chinn started delivering Chinese food on foot at 14 and dropped out of high school to join the Army during World War II, serving for three years outside Belfast, Northern Ireland.
He’s also helping two of his eight grandchildren start a business selling his Mai Tais in supermarkets using special packaging to keep the fruit juices fresh. His family is planning a public celebration of life, with details to be posted on the restaurant’s Facebook page. “The quality of the food, how people were treated, that they had fun and that everybody was like old friends when they came in,” Marilyn Chinn LeTourneau said.
A fresh seafood restaurant in the middle of the country? Mr. Chinn opened it in Wheeling in 1982 with his daughter Marilyn Chinn LeTourneau. Bob Chinn, whose Bob Chinn’s Crab House on Milwaukee Avenue in Wheeling brought droves of customers to the northwest suburbs and became one of the nation’s highest-grossing restaurants, died Friday at 99. In 1978 Bob Chinn and his daughter, Marilyn, began to travel around the country doing research for the Midwestern seafood restaurant Bob had envisioned for some time.
