Nick Kokonas, co-owner of The Alinea Group, said Monday on X he had sold his ownership of the restaurant group to an investor group led by Chicagoan Jason Weingarten.
The group’s flagship restaurant, Alinea, is one of two Chicago restaurants with three Michelin stars. Among its other projects are the restaurant Roister and the cocktail lounge The Aviary.
Reached by phone Tuesday morning, Kokonas said he was ready to try his hand at new projects and didn’t want his shifting focus to hold his team back.
“20 years is a good round number, and I’m ready to move,” said Kokonas, who opened Alinea with chef Grant Achatz in 2005.
Kokonas declined to provide financial details of the transaction.
He won’t be involved in the day-to-day running of the restaurant group, he said, but would be available to the team for high-level consulting. In his announcement on X, Kokonas said he would remain a “minority, passive investor” only in Alinea Restaurant.
“I look forward to seeing Grant and Jason build on the amazing organization and experiences TAG has in place,” he wrote.
As for his new projects, Kokonas said he’d bought a vineyard in Napa last year and had been spending time in California getting it fixed up. “There will be wine in the future,” he told the Tribune. Kokonas said he was also working on an experiential theater project about which he could not share details.
Weingarten is the co-founder of recruitment software company Yello and of meal kit startup Entrée, according to his Linkedin.
