Yard House employee-owners are invested in the future

Yard House, a 19-unit causal-dining restaurant chain based in Irvine, Calif., which sold 70 percent of its stake last fall to private-equity firm TSG Consumer Partners, now is giving all of its restaurant managers and corporate staff a piece of the action. Where previously only a handful of top executives had equity shares in the high-grossing chain, now 100 employees have a financial stake in the business, and they didn’t have to buy shares. The shares were given away in varying