Staff file photo by Jake Daniels/Mike and Taylor Monen pose together for a 2012 photo at Urban Stack restaurant in Chattanooga.
Mitch PatelThree Chattanoogans will be inducted into the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga College of Business Entrepreneurship Hall of Fame this month.
Hotel developer Mitch Patel and restaurateurs Taylor and Mike Monen will join a group of innovators who represent the entrepreneurial history of the Chattanooga area, according to the university.
The annual Entrepreneurial Hall of Fame event, which will be April 13 at the Chattanooga Golf and Country Club, honors local innovators and showcases their success stories. In addition to the 2017 Hall of Fame inductees, the event will also honor the winner of the Collegiate Spirit of Entrepreneurship Award, given to a promising entrepreneurship student.
This year's student winner is D'Anna Farrar.
"Each year, we come together to honor individuals who have made a lasting impact in and around Chattanooga," said Dr. Robert Dooley, dean of the UTC College of Business, in a statement. "This year, we honor three individuals who embody the entrepreneurial spirit and provide great examples of business leadership as well as our student entrepreneur of the year."
Patel founded Vision Hospitality Group in 1997 with the goal of creating a company dedicated to excellence with a focus on community and family, according to UTC.
The company has grown from a single hotel to a national presence. It has a portfolio of 31 hotels and a pipeline of 18 properties affiliated with brands such as Marriott International, Hilton Worldwide and InterContinental Hotels Group.
Vision's properties extend from the Chicago metro area, to Chattanooga, to Atlanta and as far west as Denver with more than 1,000 employees.
Most recently, Vision received the Marriott International Developer of the Year Award, the Marriott International Spirit to Serve Award, the Developer of the Year Award for the Hampton Brand by Hilton Worldwide, and the Multi-Brand Developer of the Year Award by Hilton Worldwide.
Patel, who holds a bachelor's and master's degree in civil engineering from the University of Tennessee, is an advocate for ending human trafficking in the hospitality industry and volunteers with a local mission to end hunger, the university said.
Taylor and Mike Monen and their Monen Family Restaurant Group began their entrepreneurial journey before completing college.
They started in the restaurant industry at Sticky Fingers, a barbeque restaurant chain. Mike Monen worked as a dishwasher at the chain's original location while he was a student at the College of Charleston in South Carolina.
He found himself intrigued with the culture that the owners created and became a full partner in the business after graduating college in 1997. He met Taylor Monen, who was working at the Chattanooga Sticky Fingers, and they began dating in 2000. Six years later, they married. In that same year, the Sticky Fingers partners sold the business to a restaurant group, according to a UTC account of the local restauranteurs.
After taking a break from the industry, the Monens found themselves missing the restaurant business and began planning their first venture together.
"We learned so much about the industry during our time at Sticky Fingers," Taylor Monen said in a statement. "And we realized we missed the business and we missed the people."
They discussed concepts, experimented with recipes and opened Taco Mamacita in Chattanooga in 2008. They followed that success by opening Urban Stack Burger Lounge in 2010, Community Pie and Milk and Honey in 2013 and Clydes on Main in 2014. They have expanded their reach outside the Chattanooga area with restaurants in Nashville, and in Sullivan's Island, S.C., as well. They now have nine restaurants and more than 600 employees, according to UTC.
Taylor Monen studied business marketing at UTC and Mike Monen studied corporate communications at the College of Charleston.
To learn more about UTC's Entrepreneurship Hall of Fame, and to see a full list of inductees, visit http://www.utc.edu/college-business/news-events/annual-events/hall-of-fame/index.php.