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The Riese Organization, one of the largest and oldest restaurant operators in the city, has generated its share of unwanted headlines over the years, including a bankruptcy in 1999 and widely publicized photographs of vermin nibbling on pastries in Riese-owned Dunkin' Donuts stores. The ensuing media frenzy resulted in Dunkin' Donuts kicking Riese out of its franchise in 2009.
But Dennis Riese, whose father, Murray, and his brother, Irving, founded the business in 1940 and amassed vast real estate holdings, is now steering the company in a new direction, and trying to shed his reputation as the fast-food king of the Big Apple.
"We will be much less known for fast food," said Mr. Riese, chairman and chief executive. "I haven't liked that identity."
For the first time in many years, Mr. Riese, 62, can boast that the privately held company has enough cash lying around to make the kinds of changes he's been dreaming about. After more than a decade of struggle because of debt assumed by the first generation of Rieses, the company two years ago pocketed about $85 million by selling a four-story building in Times Square, 1552 Broadway, where it had operated a T.G.I. Friday's - one of 10 it owns.
"It put a tremendous amount of capital in our treasury. We have virtually no debt, and we are fiscally healthier...