Marc Vetri Announces That He’s Leaving Urban Outfitters

Marc Vetri, left, and some of the Vetri Family brands.

This is a developing story and may be updated at any time.

Marc Vetri announced on Sunday afternoon that he has stepped down from his executive role at URBN, the Philly-based corporation that’s home to retail brands as Urban Outfitters, Anthropologie, Free People, and Terrain.

When URBN acquired the Vetri Family restaurant group (not including his Spruce Street darling, Vetri Cucina) from founders Vetri and his then-partner Jeff Benjamin, Vetri called the move “an unprecedented event in the restaurant and retail world.” Benjamin stayed on a year and a half before splitting from the company in August 2017. (He’s now heading up the operations side of Philly’s lifestyle-club-to-be, Fitler Club.)

In his Instagram post, Vetri says he feels that he’s given URBN all the tools necessary to “succeed and grow to its fullest potential,” and that it’s time that he stepped down to “leave them the room they need to grow.”

Reached on Sunday afternoon, Vetri cheerfully declined to comment further.

Read the announcement in full below:

This holiday season I’m thankful for so much, but mostly for the family that we have grown and nurtured over the last 10 years since we opened up our second restaurant @osteriaphilly Since then JB and I went from 10 years of 12 people at one restaurant to 400 plus co-workers, built an amazing team, created multiple Italian concepts, founded a partnership to help children understand that healthy eating leads to healthy living, and had the good fortune to join forces with an incredible company in @urbncommunity to try and scale what we had birthed. After two years with URBN I feel we have given them all the tools they need to succeed and grow this company to its fullest potential. It’s a bittersweet day for me but I feel that it’s time to step down and leave them the room they need to grow. I have nothing but admiration and respect for everyone who I met in my journey over the last two years…especially the entire Hayne family who I have always had and will continue to have mad respect for. I can’t thank everyone here but I have to give a couple shout outs to @jeffreymichaud @chefbradspence @sommillionaire all of whom helped us grow and nurture this company…all the amazing core team members past and present all of whom I can’t possibly mention here. As for me, you’ll still find me at @vetricucinaphl and with @vetricommunity everyday doing what I have loved to do for the last 20 years here! Cook! Peace! 🙏 ❤️

A post shared by marcvetri (@marcvetri) on Dec 3, 2017 at 11:53am PST