20 Best Athlete-Owned Restaurants Slideshow

Michael Jordan's sleek neighborhood place offers a seasonal menu, and maybe the best deal in town. On Wednesdays, the bar features a fried chicken and champagne dinner. Sounds like an odd pairing, but the bird comes with Asian pear slaw, a seasonally spiced waffle, and potato wedges, and the bubbly is Moncuit Blanc de Blanc. At $16, it's a steal.

One SixtyBlue has closed. It has been replaced by Asian barbecue restaurant bellyQ, which is owned by Michael Jordan, Cornerstone Restaurant Group and Chef Bill Kim and Yvonne Kim.

Though he kicked clutch field goals for the San Diego Chargers, Nate Kaeding has maintained a connection to his hometown of Iowa City, Iowa, by buying a stake in this bare-knuckle burger and beer joint. The corn-fed beef comes from Ed Smith's Farm, just 26 miles down the road, and the craft beer comes from breweries around the state, like Old Man River. If you ever find yourself in Iowa, stop here for the Popejoy, a messy medley of patty meat, capicola, provolone, and muffaletta sauce.

Yao Restaurant & Bar was good enough to be featured at number 19 on The Daily Meal's list of 25 Best Celebrity-Owned Restaurants. Former Houston Rockets center Yao Ming and his wife joined with friends and local restaurant owners to create a large space serving Chinese and Chinese-American food. Lettuce wraps, Peking dumplings, Kung Pao beef — it's all there.

Though he now plays in the NFL, quarterback Vince Young remains king in Austin for leading the University of Texas football team to the NCAA national championship in 2005. Two years ago, he returned to his college stomping grounds to open his first restaurant downtown. The menu specializes in beef, from bacon and blue cheese bison sliders to locally sourced Texas prime grade steaks and a rich wagyu brisket burger balanced out by briny house-made pickles.

With his replacement Aaron Rodgers having already equaled his success at bringing Superbowl trophies to Green Bay, you wonder how much longer Brett Favre's Steakhouse will continue to pull in regulars. But for now, it is doing very well. The restaurant is filled with Packers memorabilia, trophies, and personal items of the peripatetic quarterback. It's "the one place on Earth that captures the spirit of #4," notes the restaurant's web site, reflecting "Brett's Southern upbringing in its menu and warm, welcoming atmosphere."

Largest cuts include the 32-ounce porterhouse, Brett's Signature Steak (a 20-ounce portion of London Broil seasoned with cracked pepper, and garnished with sautéed button mushrooms), and Brett's Cut (20 ounces) of Titletown's Best Prime Rib. That Southern upbringing shows itself on the menu, with items like Bayou pasta, blackened grouper, and jambalaya. And Friday nights feature perch, walleye, and all-you-can-eat cod.

The former defensive lineman and linebacker has three locations of Randy White's Hall of Fame BBQ, his "Dallas-style" Texas barbecue joint on the outskirts of the city (Frisco, Mesquite, and Addison), each with wood-burning pits.

The namesake restaurant of Canada's most beloved hockey player and NHL Hall of Famer is strategically located a block and a half from the Rogers Centre, home of the Toronto Blue Jays. Despite being closer to the ballpark than the hockey arena, Gretzky's pulls in fans with local delicacies like poutine, a heart-clogging mashup of skin-on fries, cheese curds, and a pool of gravy. There's also pan-fried pierogies stuffed with bacon, potato, and Cheddar, inspired by "The Great One's" grandmother. For oenophiles, Gretzky produces his own brand of wine, No. 99, that's grapes are grown on a peninsula in Vineland, Ontario, considered to be the "Napa of the North."

Many dishes at Joe Theismann's sound pretty run-of-the-mill — wedge salad, seared ahi tuna, baked brie — but you have to be doing something right to have the staying power this former Redskins' quarterback's restaurant does, since it opened 35 years ago. Of greatest interest perhaps is the "steakhouse-style pork," described as "dry-bbq rubbed," a customer favorite for 30 years.

The creation of businessman and restaurant-owner Frank Chivas, who partnered with former Buccaneers running back Mike "A-Train" Alstott (and others), Island Way Grill boasts that it's "all about fresh fish." The site says the restaurant has its own boats, which "make daily trips to the middle grounds to bring back fresh tuna, mahi, snapper, and other local species... If it's any fresher, it is still in the Gulf." Fish is cooked around an oak and citrus-fired open pit.

Twenty-one seasons with the Boston Bruins made Ray Bourque a legend in Boston. Even though it wasn't until joining the Colorado Avalanche that he won the Stanley Cup, Bourque chose Boston as the place to open his Italian restaurant, Tresca. There's a four-course tasting menu to help you navigate choosing between crespelle, vongoline, cioppino, osso bucco, maiale Abbruzzese, and other promising dishes.