A successful lawyer and executive of the parent company of the Cafe Luciano and Cucina Roma restaurants, E. Robert Gordon was often happiest at a desk with a spread sheet in front of him or sitting next to his wife in a school gym watching their sons play basketball.
Mr. Gordon, 56, died Wednesday in Northwestern Memorial Hospital, where he had been undergoing treatment for Hodgkin’s disease.
Born in Jackson, Mich., Mr. Gordon attended Culver Military Academy in Indiana and Washington & Lee University in Virginia before moving to Chicago, where he earned his law degree at John Marshall Law School and became a partner with the law firm of Vedder, Price, Kaufman, Kammholz & Day, specializing in tax law.
In the early 1980s, he relocated to Aspen, Colo., where he continued to practice law while becoming involved in the banking business. A few years later, he moved to Los Angeles, where he started working in real estate development and met and married Marijo Arnold. The couple moved back to Chicago in the early 1990s, where Mr. Gordon continued to develop real estate.
One deal, on a vacant spot in Evanston, put him back in contact with old friend Richard Smith, then running the Cafe Luciano restaurant on Rush Street. They decided to develop the Evanston property as another Cafe Luciano, thereby launching a restaurant company, with Smith as president and Mr. Gordon as chief financial officer.
“We had known each other on a social basis for many years before we went into business together,” Smith said. “There was a serendipity to it. We made a great team.”
And a very successful one. Their Westmont-based Cafe Concepts and Management now owns and operates a number of Chicago-area restaurants, including two Cafe Luciano restaurants; six Cucina Roma outposts; the Pronto Roma restaurants; and the Big Dipper Ice Cream Cafe on Navy Pier.
“Bob was most comfortable with a pencil in one hand and a calculator in the other,” Smith said. “He just lived for numbers, and he was the brains of this outfit. He had one of the most brilliant business minds I’ve ever encountered.”
Mr. Gordon lived with his wife and two children, Rob and Kyle, in Streeterville, where he was active in the community. He was most passionate about activities involving the Francis Xavier Warde-Old St. Patrick School.
“He was an extraordinary family man,” said Sister Mary Ellen Caron, the school’s principal. “And that love of family extended to the school. He was constantly involved, willing to do anything.”
In addition to his wife and sons, Mr. Gordon is survived by his mother, Jennifer Weaver; sisters Denise Wenger and Dawn Selim; and brothers Roger, Alan and Jim.
A memorial mass will be said at 10 a.m. Friday in Old St. Patrick’s Church, 700 W. Adams St.
