At 40 years old, Smith is on track to generate $200 million in revenue this year through his restaurant group—a journey that began with a modest ice cream shop fresh out of college.
Smith graduated from the University of Delaware in 2007 with a degree in business administration and a strong desire to prove himself as an entrepreneur. Despite coming from a family with significant business success, Smith was determined to carve out his own path. His maternal grandfather, John Paterakis, made a fortune with H&S Bakery, selling bread rolls to McDonald’s before venturing into real estate development. On his paternal side, his grandfather, Julian Sinclair Smith, founded Sinclair Broadcast Group, a media giant with $3.1 billion in annual revenue.
While Smith wanted to make his mark independently, a family connection did provide an initial boost. After college, he approached Paterakis about opening an ice cream shop in an empty space next to a movie theater in Baltimore’s Harbor East, a development built by his grandfather’s company. Paterakis agreed, and Smith quickly submitted an application to franchise a Häagen-Dazs store.
Having secured the location and prepared a solid business plan, Smith impressed Häagen-Dazs during the franchise application process. The Harbor East development provided him with a tenant improvement allowance, a common incentive landlords use to attract commercial tenants, which covered much of the $100,000 startup cost for the franchise.
Smith then spent two weeks in Minneapolis at Häagen-Dazs University, learning everything from payroll management and inventory control to marketing strategies, scheduling, and equipment maintenance. “Essentially, you learn everything on how to run a small business,” Smith recalls. “The day I opened that store, I could and did run it by myself.”
Smith still owns and operates that Häagen-Dazs location today.
Three years later, Smith used the ice cream shop’s profits, another tenant improvement allowance, and his savings to open Harbor East Deli, a restaurant he saw as filling a gap in the community’s dining options. “I saw a need in the community for a place to get lunch,” he explains. “I didn’t think of it in terms of a long-term goal at that time. I just saw a need and thought, ‘How can I monetize this?'”
In 2012, Smith ventured into fine dining by opening Ouzo Bay, a Greek restaurant. With all three of his businesses located within three blocks of each other, Smith was able to remain deeply involved in every aspect of their operations—from pricing and staffing to even selecting the ambient music.
His efforts paid off, with his ventures collectively bringing in $6 million in sales that year. However, the intense workload left Smith feeling burned out. As his portfolio grew, he recognized the need to delegate and build a strong team. “We hired a finance person, an HR person, a digital media person,” he says, noting that Atlas Restaurant Group, the company he founded, now employs more than 40 corporate staff. “We started to figure out what departments we needed to execute a larger plan.”
The journey hasn’t been without challenges. In 2020, Atlas was sued for racial discrimination related to Ouzo Bay’s customer dress code. The company issued a public apology, fired two employees involved in the incident, and the lawsuit was dismissed by a federal judge earlier this year.
Smith also faced a significant setback with his first failed restaurant venture. In 2017, Atlas opened an Ouzo Bay location in Boca Raton, Florida, without fully understanding the local market. The quick failure taught Smith the importance of entering new markets by acquiring existing businesses with strong community ties.
This strategy paid off in June when Atlas acquired a majority stake in Delaware’s Big Fish Restaurant Group and its 16 restaurants. The acquisition made Atlas the largest independently operated restaurant group in the Mid-Atlantic, according to the company.
Baltimore’s economic struggles have often posed challenges for local businesses, but the city’s gross domestic product has recently shown one of the fastest growth rates among similarly sized cities, according to 2023 data from the U.S. Department of Commerce. Smith takes pride in contributing to this resurgence by creating jobs in the city where his family has lived for generations.
“This is where I was born, and it’s where I’ll die,” Smith says. “I want to make sure that we leave it a better place.”
