If you read the business pages you may have read something about a company called Peregrine Financial Group and the arrest of its founder, Russell Wasendorf Sr., accused of looting at least $100 million from the firm. So what do guys with that kind of money (licit or not) do with it? They often invest in restaurants, treating them as their own private clubhouses much of the time, and so the Tribune’s Ameet Sachdev goes to talk to Allen Sternweiler, of The Butcher and Burger, who before that was the chef of Harvest on Huron and Allen’s— which Wasendorf came to be the primary investor in. As you might expect, Sternweiler didn’t pry into his investor’s personal business, and the management of the restaurant seems to have been above board. But he certainly has to wonder now how his farm-to-table restaurant was funded. (We should emphasize that there’s no connection between Sternweiler’s current restaurant The Butcher and Burger and Wasendorf, and Sternweiler says he hasn’t spoken to him in three years.) [Tribune]
