The Capital Grille restaurant chain has sued the developers of the newly opened InterContinental Chicago O’Hare over plans for a competing restaurant to join Capital Grille as part of the hotel development.
Capital Grille’s owner, RARE Hospitality Management Inc., alleges in a lawsuit that the developer, a joint venture of Harp Group Inc. and Mid-America Development Partners LLC, violated an exclusivity provision in its lease by bringing in Wildfire restaurant as a tenant.
In the lawsuit, filed earlier this month in Cook County Circuit Court, Capital Grille asks the court to disallow the planned Wildfire, saying its operation would amount to a breach of contract.
Two executives with the development venture, Oak Brook-based River Road Restaurant Pads LLC, decline to comment, and their attorney in the matter didn’t return a call. John Martin, president of Orlando, Fla.-based Capital Grille, and the firm’s attorney both decline to comment.
Capital Grille, which was acquired last year by Darden Restaurants Inc., is to open late this year or early next year along River Road near the 556-room, 12-story InterContinental hotel, which opened last month at 5300 N. River Road.
According to the lawsuit, Capital Grille signed a lease for the project in September 2006 that includes a provision barring the landlord from having other “high-end steakhouse themed restaurant concepts serving liquor with price points above $22.00 per entrée” as part of the project.
The suit notes that Wildfire’s registered name and Web site refers to the restaurant as “Wildfire: Steaks, Chops and Seafood,” and that its steaks are priced above $22.
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