Emeril Lagasse turned down a conservatory percussion scholarship for culinary school and built a New Orleans restaurant, media and product business earning about $150 million a year by 2005.
Daniel Lubetzky built PeaceWorks around Middle East cooperation, then launched KIND Snacks in 2003, which became the fastest-growing US snack company in 2015 before Mars agreed to acquire it in 2020.
Indra Nooyi moved from Chennai to Yale in 1978 and led PepsiCo as chairman and CEO from 2006 to 2018, ranking repeatedly among the world's most powerful women.
Dave Thomas dropped out of high school to work full time at a Fort Wayne diner, founded Wendy's and appeared in more than 800 commercials for it, a record for any company founder.
Tilman Fertitta grew up peeling shrimp in his father's Galveston restaurant, built Landry's into a restaurant and entertainment empire, bought the Houston Rockets for $2.2 billion and became US ambassador to Italy in 2025.
Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield opened a Burlington, Vermont ice cream parlor in 1978 after a bagel business proved too expensive. The chunky style was developed to compensate for Cohen's anosmia.
Jim Koch left consulting in 1984 to brew Samuel Adams from his great-great-grandfather's recipe, becoming a founding father of American craft brewing.
Kimbal Musk co-founded Zip2 with his brother Elon, then turned to food, building The Kitchen Restaurant Group, the Big Green Learning Gardens nonprofit and the urban-farming company Square Roots.
Guy Fieri started selling pretzels from an 'Awesome Pretzel' bicycle cart at ten and became the 'face' of the Food Network, according to The New York Times, in 2010.
Danny Meyer opened Union Square Cafe at 27 in 1985 and built USHG, whose restaurants include Gramercy Tavern and Shake Shack.
Colonel Sanders began selling fried chicken from a roadside restaurant in North Corbin, Kentucky, franchised it from 1952, and sold KFC in 1964 for $2 million at age 73.
Ray Kroc was a milkshake-mixer salesman who convinced the McDonald brothers to let him franchise their San Bernardino burger stand, bought the brand in 1961 and grew it into the world's biggest fast-food company.
