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Sam Fox, founder of nearly-100-unit Fox Restaurant Concepts, is stepping away from his company at the end of the year, seven years after selling it to The Cheesecake Factory, to start a new hospitality group called Author & Edit.
"Cheesecake Factory's market cap is as big as it's ever been and obviously the stores are doing well. To have a business that's as old as it is, and to have the comp sales they have is pretty incredible," Fox told Nation's Restaurant News. "We've been having some of their team integrate with some of our Fox team as well. I think they're set up for a big future and a lot of success."
Since selling his Fox Restaurant Concepts — which currently includes concepts like Culinary Dropout, Wild Flower, Dough Bird, and Olive & Ivy — Fox has stayed on as CEO even under new ownership. But now he will be focusing entirely on his new hotel-centric hospitality group. Author & Edit's flagship hotel is The Global Ambassador, which opened in December 2023 with co-investment from NBA star Devin Booker, and is home to 141 rooms and six restaurants.
Nashville's Twelve Thirty Club, a Prohibition-era-themed supper club co-owned by Justin Timberlake, will also be part of Author & Edit. Another Twelve Thirty Club will be opening in Austin next September, and more Global Ambassador hotels are planned for the future.
"We've taken [all of what we learned] from years of running great restaurants and will be applying that to hotels," Fox said. "It's a lot of the same, but you have people staying with you for 24 hours instead of two hours for dinner, so there's a longer window for us to provide amazing hospitality to our guests."
Fox will also be opening more stand-alone restaurants, including an Au Cheval outpost coming to Nashville in November, and a new location of Théa Mediterranean Rooftop, which currently sits on top of The Global Ambassador, and is set to open as a stand-alone restaurant in Dallas in early 2027.
In the immediate future, Author & Edit will focus on development in Nashville and Phoenix, with more expansion opportunities and concepts to be announced in the near future.
"We're going to do a little bit differently at Author & Edit," Fox said. "We're going to partner with people, invest in people, and mentor people. I'm at a different point in my career, and able to have the luxury of being able to do whatever I want to do. I'm able to learn from some smart people and hopefully they're learning from us. We're looking forward to these partnerships."
