Michael Mina built his career on a simple belief: restaurants, when done right, “bring out the best in everybody.” That philosophy underpins The MINA Group, the hospitality company he founded after decades of cooking, experimenting and rethinking how chef-driven restaurants can grow without losing their soul.
Born in Egypt and raised in Washington state, Mina came up through local cafes before formal training at The Culinary Institute of America in New York. Early work with Charlie Palmer at Aureole and later with George Morrone at Hotel Bel-Air sharpened both his technique and his ambition. In 1991, backed by San Francisco restaurateur Charles Condy, Mina and Morrone opened Aqua, a seafood restaurant that rejected hushed “whisper joint” fine dining in favor of a bustling bar, modern energy and boundary-pushing cooking.
Aqua’s success led to the Aqua Development Corporation and, crucially, a new way of thinking about the business side of restaurants. Traditional leases demanded heavy capital and often forced chefs to surrender control to investors. Mina saw an alternative in the management-contract model used by luxury hotel brands like Four Seasons: own no real estate, manage everything, and build a powerful brand that partners want to host.
His partnership at the Bellagio in Las Vegas proved that approach could thrive in restaurants. By the time he left Aqua Development Corporation, half its portfolio operated under management contracts. In 2003, Mina launched The MINA Group with Andre Agassi and Stefanie Graf, committing fully to that model and focusing on hotels and casinos. The group started unusually sophisticated for a restaurant company: dedicated finance, HR, PR and marketing teams from day one, and no construction cost for its first flagship, Michael Mina at the St. Francis in San Francisco.
Management contracts gave Mina access to unionized hotel staff with solid wages and benefits, aligning with his belief that caring for employees is central to long-term success. It also allowed him to scale. Today, The MINA Group oversees more than 30 restaurants, including the Bourbon Steak brand, Acqua Bistecca, Orla and International Smoke, tailoring each concept to its city rather than imposing a one-size-fits-all formula.
Mina’s model depends on humility and local relevance. Entering a new market, he studies the existing food culture, adjusts names and menus to fit the city’s identity, and designs each restaurant around dinner as the defining experience. Constant evolution is nonnegotiable: even a 20-year-old brand like Bourbon Steak must feel forward-looking, not nostalgic.
For Mina, staying relevant means reassessing systems regularly and investing deeply in staff. In his view, legendary restaurants are built not just on a chef’s reputation, but on confident teams who believe in the concept and become its true face to the world.
