Chris Harter heads the Legacy Restaurants team as President and Chief Executive Officer. Harter joined in the creation of Legacy in 2006 after serving as President of the Restaurant Division of Levy Restaurants, the nation’s market leader in premium sports and entertainment venues. Levy also operates a collection of distinctive restaurants. These include high profile locations like Spiaggia, an Italian four-star restaurant in Chicago (the Obamas’ favorite) and Fulton’s Crab House in Orlando, one of the top-grossing restaurants in the country. While with Levy, Harter headed up operations and development of over thirty successful locations from coast to coast.

Chris also has a culinary background that includes Executive Chef positions at restaurants and private clubs in both California and Texas. He spent ten years on the front lines honing his management skills as Owner and General Manager of Christopher’s Restaurant, a 15,000 square foot waterfront seafood house in California until 1994.

In 1994, Chris developed and opened the first of three independent, Southwestern style restaurants in Scottsdale, Arizona. He sold the two he still owned in 2004 and made the move to corporate life at Levy. Chris joined Levy in 2004 and headed the entire Restaurant Group until he co-founded Legacy in late 2006.

Though Chris is not a native Houstonian, he also has deep ties to Houston as well as Arizona, having attended the University of Houston’s Hilton School of Hotel and Restaurant Management in the early 80’s.

At Legacy, Chris leads the team that is creating new concepts while also reinvigorating two of Houston’s most iconic culinary institutions, The Original Ninfa’s on Navigation and Antone’s Famous Po’boys. This involves a wholesale division with over 145 supermarket and other outlets and catering. The current, primary focus of the talented staff that Chris has assembled is to pursue opportunities to leverage these brands and develop those new concepts. Legacy is currently negotiating several such ventures. Meanwhile, in Chris’ third year at the helm, Legacy’s flagship, the Original Ninfa’s on Navigation is experiencing the best year in its almost forty year history, and Antone’s unit sales have also made records.