Five years later, the brothers sold the luncheonette for $38,500, and they used the profit to start a business of flipping troubled restaurant properties after quickly refurbishing them.
In 1982, Marriott Corporation, which owned the Roy Rogers restaurant chain, sued Riese for planning to colocate a Roy Rogers with a Pizza Hut and a Häagen-Dazs ice cream shop in one Times Square location; after the Riese family won, they opened additional food courts with as many as eight brands in one location.
[3] By the late 1980s, the Riese Organization had licenses to run operations for 28 franchises in New York City, most of them on an exclusive basis.
[2][5] In 2013, Dennis Riese told Crain's New York Business that his company "will be much less known for fast food," by opening more casual dining eateries with table service.
[7] Although Riese's food court restaurants took and fulfilled orders from different retail units, sometimes on separate floors of a building, they had a centralized kitchen to reduce operating costs.
This violated the terms of many franchise agreements, although the Rieses used their wealth and real estate holdings to exert leverage over brand owners.
[2] In 1998, the front page of the New York Post showed a Riese-owned Dunkin' Donuts franchise infested with rats, one of which was eating a coconut doughnut.
Friday's, Houlihan's, Beefsteak Charlie's, Tim Hortons, Chock full o'Nuts lunch counters, Roy Rogers restaurants, Pizza Hut, and KFC.