Joe Fontana

Joe Fontana is the founder and CEO of Fry the Coop, a Chicago-based fast-casual restaurant group known for its Nashville hot chicken sandwiches fried in beef tallow. Born and raised in Chicago, Fontana left a corporate job he disliked and followed his passion for food into the restaurant business. After failing to raise capital in California, he returned to his hometown and opened the first Fry the Coop location with the help of a friend who owned a building.

The concept was inspired by his obsession with The Crack Shack in San Diego and the simplicity of In-N-Out Burger. Fontana built Fry the Coop around a tight menu, beef tallow frying, and obsessive hospitality standards. The brand now operates ten locations with nearly two hundred employees and finished last year at twelve point nine million dollars in sales.

Fontana's current challenge is scaling to seventy-five locations over the next decade without diluting his equity or sacrificing the culture that made the brand successful. He is exploring a mix of franchising, sale-leasebacks, and minority equity deals to fund growth while keeping control in the hands of people who care about the product.