This story is part of CNBC Make It's Millennial Money series, which details how people around the world earn, spend and save their money.

In 2007, Alex Smith had no designs on building a multi-state restaurant group that brings in nine figures annually. He just wanted to open an ice cream shop.

Smith, now 40, was right out of college and eager to build something of his own after growing up in a family of ultra-successful entrepreneurs. "It was very important for me to carve my own path separate from my family," he says.

The ice cream shop, a Häagen-Dazs franchise in Baltimore's Harbor East neighborhood, helped Smith open a nearby deli three years later. That lunch spot became the first in his sprawling portfolio of 50 bars, restaurants and "entertainment concepts" with more than 2,700 employees across five states.

It's all under the umbrella of Atlas Restaurant Group, with Smith serving as founder and president since 2014. Last year, Atlas brought in nearly $145 million in total gross sales from its locations, according to documents reviewed by CNBC Make It. This year, Atlas is on track to top $200 million, the company says.

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Spending your entire adult life in a single industry comes with benefits and challenges, Smith says. He can handle every aspect of running a restaurant, and often has — from manning the deli counter during a lunch rush to seating dinner guests at his upscale Greek restaurant a block away.

"I would touch every table and talk to every guest," says Smith.

Learning to be less hands-on, so he could step back and focus on the big picture, was a greater challenge. "Not having control over that is, I think, the most difficult part of being a bigger restaurant corporation," he says.

Learning how to run a business

Smith majored in business administration and played lacrosse at the University of Delaware. He graduated in 2007 with a goal to prove himself as an entrepreneur, without working directly for his family.

His maternal grandfather, John Paterakis, owned Baltimore's H&S Bakery and made a fortune selling bread rolls to McDonald's before starting a real estate development business. Smith's other grandfather, Julian Sinclair Smith, founded Sinclair Broadcast Group, the conservative media giant with $3.1 billion in annual revenue.

A connection did give the younger Smith a boost: After college, he asked Paterakis if he could open an ice cream shop in an empty space next to a movie theater in Baltimore's Harbor East, a development built by his grandfather's company.

Paterakis said yes, and Smith submitted a Häagen-Dazs franchise ownership application. Having a location secured — and a business plan already prepared — impressed the brand's franchising team during his sit-down interview, Smith says.

Harbor East furnished him with a tenant improvement allowance — a common tool for landlords to attract commercial tenants — to cover much of the cost of opening the franchise, which Smith says was $100,000.

He spent two weeks in Minneapolis training at what the chain calls Häagen-Dazs University. There, he learned everything from handling payroll and inventory to marketing the business, scheduling employee shifts and maintaining equipment, he says.

"Essentially, you learn everything on how to run a small business ... so the day that I opened that store, I could and did run the store by myself," says Smith.

He still owns and operates that Häagen-Dazs location today.

The challenges of stepping back

Three years in, Smith used the ice cream shop's profits, another tenant improvement allowance and some of his savings to build and open a restaurant called Harbor East Deli.

"I saw a need in the community for ... a place to get lunch," says Smith. "I didn't really think of it in terms of [having] a goal at that time. I just saw a need, and so I thought, 'OK. How can I monetize this?'"

In 2012, Smith decided to try his hand at fine dining, opening a Greek restaurant called Ouzo Bay. His three businesses were within three blocks of each other, allowing him to stay "involved in every aspect" of each location — pricing, staffing, even picking playlists for ambient music.

The results: a total of $6 million in sales that year and an impending sense of burnout for Smith, he says. Growing his portfolio meant learning to let go.

"We hired a finance person, we hired an HR person, we hired a ... digital media person," he says, noting that Atlas has more than 40 corporate employees today. "And we started to figure out what are the departments that we need to execute a larger plan."

Other challenges have arisen, too. In 2020, the restaurant group was sued for racial discrimination over Ouzo Bay's customer dress code. Atlas publicly apologized for the incident and fired two employees over it, including the restaurant manager who'd invoked the dress code. A federal judge dismissed the lawsuit earlier this year.

Smith's first restaurant flop also left an imprint: With no sense of the local geography, Atlas tried to open an Ouzo Bay location in Boca Raton, Florida, in 2017. Its quick failure taught Smith to instead enter new markets by taking over existing businesses with footholds in their communities.

In June, for example, Atlas paid an undisclosed amount to acquire a majority stake in Delaware's Big Fish Restaurant Group and its 16 restaurants. The deal made Atlas the largest independently operated restaurant group in the Mid-Atlantic, the company says.

Baltimore's history of economic struggles have frequently challenged its ability to attract and foster businesses. But today, it boasts a gross domestic product among the fastest-growing in the country for cities of its size, according to 2023 data from the U.S. Department of Commerce.

Smith says he's thrilled to play even a small role in that resurgence by creating jobs in the city where he and his family have lived for generations.

"This is where I was born, and it's where I'll die," says Smith. "I want to make sure that we leave it a better place."

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