Richard Mott's first foray into hospitality was in the 1980s at the University of Chicago, where he started running a coffee shop in the basement of the business school when he was a grad student. By the time he graduated, he helped grow that single coffee shop into four locations across campus. He's a longtime Chicago-based restaurateur and his farm-to-table restaurant North Pond has been around since the late 1990s. Lately, he's expanded his business to include Spark Shared Kitchen, a catering facility and incubator for food entrepreneurs. He knows a lot about the practical economics of restaurants and hospitality at large, and in his decades-long career in the Chicago scene he's seen about everything. On our recent trip to Chicago, we sat down with Mott to talk about the ever-increasing price of food and labor, why diners are drinking less, and the expected and unexpected reasons that restaurants so often fail. Read more: Chicago Seeks to Borrow for Police Settlements, Revive Head Tax (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-10-21/chicago-seeks-to-borrow-for-police-settlements-revive-head-tax?utm_medium=referral&utm_source=podcast&utm_campaign=odd_lots&utm_content=article) Chipotle’s Softening Sales Force Analyst to Throw in the Towel (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-10-23/chipotle-s-softening-sales-force-analyst-to-throw-in-the-towel?utm_medium=referral&utm_source=podcast&utm_campaign=odd_lots&utm_content=article) Only http://Bloomberg.com (http://Bloomberg.com) subscribers can get the Odd Lots newsletter in their inbox each week, plus unlimited access to the site and app. Subscribe at bloomberg.com/subscriptions/oddlots (https://www.bloomberg.com/subscriptions/oddlots?in_source=oddlotspodcast) Subscribe to the Odd Lots Newsletter (http://bloomberg.com/subscriptions/oddlots) Join the conversation: discord.gg/oddlots (https://discord.gg/oddlots) See omnystudio.com/listener (https://omnystudio.com/listener) for privacy information. Bloomberg's Joe Weisenthal and Tracy Alloway analyze the weird patterns, the complex issues and the newest market crazes. Join the conversation every Monday and Thursday for interviews with the most interesting minds in finance, economics and markets. Subscribe to Bloomberg Podcasts: https://bit.ly/BloombergPodcasts Check out more Odd Lots: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLe4PRejZgr0MuA6M0zkZyy-99-qc87wKV Get the Odd Lots newsletter via https://www.bloomberg.com/account/newsletters/oddlots And for all things Odd Lots, visit https://www.bloomberg.com/oddlots Visit our other YouTube channels: Bloomberg Television: https://www.youtube.com/@markets Bloomberg Originals: https://www.youtube.com/bloomberg Quicktake: https://www.youtube.com/@BloombergQuicktake #Bloomberg #Podcast #OddLots Visit us: https://www.bloomberg.com/podcasts Follow Bloomberg Podcasts on Twitter: https://twitter.com/podcasts For coverage on news, markets and more: http://www.bloomberg.com/video