Marcus Samuelsson Awards: Marcus Samuelsson: Chef, Businessman, Money Maker

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Celebrity chef Marcus Samuelsson (pictured) is a busy man. The New York Times gave a recap recently about three days in his hectic life.

Samuelsson went from hobnobbing with Kanye West at an event at the Metropolitan Museum of Art to posing on the red carpet with his model wife to taping the audio version of his memoir to overseeing a dinner for the Queen and princess of Sweden. The following day, he was up in Harlem at his well-loved restaurant, Red Rooster Harlem.

In fact, the New York Times gushes that Samuelsson “exploded not only onto New York’s food scene but also on to its cutthroat food business scene”:

Yes, there is Red Rooster and five other restaurants. But there is more — much more. A forthcoming cookware collection for Macy’s. A new line of teas. Deals with American Airlines and MasterCard. Appearances on “Top Chef Masters,” “Chopped All-Stars,” and “The Next Iron Chef.” Two Web sites, FoodRepublic.com and marcussamuelsson.com, not to mention four cookbooks and the memoir. His growing multimillion-dollar enterprise stretches from New York to Chicago to California to Stockholm, and employs more than 700 people.

It’s clear that Samuelsson is going for broke.

In the mostly homogenous world of celebrity chefs, Samuelsson is one of the few brown faces making noise. He cooked President Barack Obama’s first state dinner.

On Lenox Avenue in Harlem, where he opened Red Rooster, he helped to revitalize the strip also known as Malcolm X Boulevard.

Red Rooster’s neighbor, Sylvia’s, probably the most-famous soul food restaurant in the world, has been holding down the area for decades. But after Samuelsson opened Red Rooster and A-list names started showing up for dinner, three other lounges and restaurants opened nearby. He recently hosted a fund-raiser for the President at the restaurant.

“We constantly have to edit, curate, sift through our brand,” Samuelsson told the Times. “Where is the stretch? Where is the perfect fit? Where does it make sense? You have to be a Baryshnikov.”

After recently opening the American Table Cafe, a casual dining spot in Lincoln Center, the Ethiopian-born Samuelsson, who was raised by Swedish adoptive parents, proves that his brand shows no signs of slowing down.

For all his efforts, Samuelsson is the Shine Awards Money Maker winner. A busy restaurant like Samuelsson’s could easily gross $10 million per year, and his endorsements can add many more millions.

But it’s not 100 percent about the cash for Samuelsson. He also gets points for wanting his restaurants to be accessible to the local community. He has also hired local workers at Red Rooster and has said that 80 of the 110 people or so on staff are from the area.

And he wants those staffers to advance: Samuelsson hopes that his Red Rooster staff grow up in the restaurant industry to become executives, head chefs, and restaurant owners and entrepreneurs. For all we know, Samuelsson could be grooming the next him.