Fast-casual wannabes

Tony Palombino has launched multiple restaurant concepts in his quarter-century career, including wraps, fish tacos and quick-service Mexican. But the only one that lasted was his delivery-carryout pizza company, two-unit Tony Boombozz Pizza e Panini.

 

The concept has gained national renown for its award-winning pizza, but after 10-years, Palombino sensed customers wanted something more from the company, perhaps a dine-in place. He'd been the full-service route before and didn't want to revisit it, so the solution was to step up to a fast-casual pizzeria.

 

"Tony Boombozz proved people will pay for gourmet pizza, but I wanted to do something different," said Palombino. "There's nothing like this in Louisville, and this is a great restaurant town."

 

No red-and-white checkerboard kitsch of traditional pizzerias here. Earth tones dominate the color scheme, lighting is chic and the floor is colored concrete. The restaurant serves a host of gourmet pizzas along with lasagna, panini, salads, beer and wine. Customers order at the counter, get a number and the food is brought to the table.

 

"People want the added service, but they don't always want to take their families to a regular restaurant," he added. "We wanted it to be simple, affordable and quick."

 

Tony Roma's Ribs, Seafood and Steak is headed the opposite direction, stepping down from casual dining to fast casual with its new Tony Roma's Fast & Casual. The company knew its core concept's sturdy offerings and $16 per-person check average meant customers visited only occasionally; for most, a trip to Tony Roma's is more dining occasion than food deposit.

 

Growing its business meant experimenting with a fast-casual iteration of the dinner-house chain. Mainstay items like ribs would remain, but heavier steaks were trimmed down to smoked, sliced sirloin, trendy salads, artisan bread and soups.

 

"Our new concept is all about speed and convenience," said Marc Buehler, chief operating officer of Dallas-based Tony Roma's. "We feel that we have to compete with the bakery café segment by offering food that's better than what they're doing,  but at the same price points."

 

Though Ed Gleich, senior vice president of concept development at Arby's, won't call the company's new Market Fresh concept fast casual, it's clearly more upscale than the company's traditional roast beef shop.

 

"It's somewhere in between, but I'd say it leans toward QSR," said Gleich. "In the strictest terms of a fast-casual concept, you order the food, they give you number, you sit down and someone brings you your food. Market Fresh differs in that because you order the food and you get it almost immediately. If you have to wait for your food, it's usually ready by the time you get your soda."

 

Still, the differences are obvious, most notably in the contemporary décor, furniture and lighting — nothing at all akin to the western theme of the past — and in the "salad tossery." Everything from greens to garbanzos are displayed in a refrigerated glass case. Customers select what they want and have cooks toss the combo to order. Market Fresh stores, of which there are two, also sell conveyor-oven toasted subs and Crostini, which are similar to panini.

 

Décor and menu upgrades aside, Gleich said Market Fresh has a check average that's comparable to Arby's, and to him, that's enough to call it QSR. A few fancy frills don't make it a fast-casual stop, he said.

"I don't know that we're attracting a new customer base or targeting a different user. What we are doing is making the experience more convenient," he said.

 

 

In retooling the legendary Shakey's Pizza concept, chief executive Tim Pulido wasn't aiming for a new target demographic, he just wanted the customers currently paying the bills to like Shakey's a lot more. The Alhambra, Calif.-based chain's family-focused pizza parlors include popular — not to mention, revenue-generating — game rooms that keep kids occupied. The drawback, however, was the noise spilling over into dining areas, where parents wanted a little peace.

 

Shakey's food lineup, built on pizza and fried chicken, needed a freshening, too. And after a year's work, the 59-unit chain rolled out the first Shakey's Pizza & Grill, a 200-seat, fashionable fast-casual outlet serving Shakey's standards, tossed-to-order salads, Angus burgers, grilled sandwiches and California microbrews. In addition, a glass wall separating game room and dining room was added to control noise.

 

"We want kids to have fun, but we want the dining room to be relaxed," Pulido said. "The food only adds to that. With a broader menu, we believe adults can find more reasons to come back more often, stay longer and enjoy themselves."

 

Buehler said Tony Roma's Fast & Casual is drawing the 25- to 55-year-old who wants premium food served swiftly and affordably. "No question we're seeing a strong pull from the 25 to 44 range, and we're seeing more women in there."

 

Jim Minidis, chief executive of RedBrick Pizza, also wants that demographic, a group he said includes better-funded and more experienced diners whose standards are higher than that of a generation ago.

 

"The dining public today is much more sophisticated," said Minidis, whose 50-unit, six-year-old company is headquartered in Palmdale, Calif. "They don't want ordinary coffee now that they know what Starbucks is like. They don't want ordinary chicken when they can have fire-roasted chicken. We're doing the same with pizza."

 

Knowing customers want to eat and run, Buehler said the chain studied its quick-service airport concept for shortcuts. Ticket times of 4 to 7 minutes, "depending on how busy we are," are common at Fast & Casual, and tables turn about every 25 minutes. Eliminating contact with a table server removes at least 10 minutes from the dining experience, he said.

 

Still, customers don't want to be totally abandoned by the staff, said Michael McManama, senior vice-president of brand development at Papa Gino's and D'Angelos Grilled Sandwiches. When it launched a fast-casual repositioning for Papa Gino's, they added a dining room position called the "servizio." That person ensures the dining room remains clean, asks guests if they're satisfied, fetches drink refills if necessary and brings food to tables where possible. D'Angelos expects to adopt servizios as well.

 

"We call that 'limited-service plus,'" said McManama. "When a consumer walks into a limited-service restaurant, they have a certain set of expectations. Our goal is to try to exceed those expectations."

McManama said both Papa Gino's and D'Angelos have worked to turn food preparation into "theater for customers." People not only believe their food is fresher if they see it prepared, he said, the visual impression becomes entertainment. "We want people watching our guys make sandwiches and pizzas. It's part of the show you don't get in quick-service."

 

 

With high real estate prices in key markets, Buehler said looking to maximize the ratio between dollars earned per-square-foot leased was essential in developing Fast & Casual.

 

"It's expensive to build a free-standing 6,000 square-foot building, so if I can do two-thirds the volume in a 2,500 square-foot restaurant, I'll do it," he said. "Where possible, we'll look for places where we can put a patio."

 

Ideally, Buehler said, a set number of traditional Tony Roma's will open in a metro area, and Fast & Casual units will be added where necessary. "We know there's a limited appeal for Tony Roma's dinner house brand in any market, so we would open those and then backfill with Fast & Casual."

 

Darren Tristano, executive vice president of Technomic Information Services, said twisting and changing concepts either up or down to fit the fast-casual model may work in some cases, but it could confuse customers who are used to the dining experience provided by the parent chain experience.

 

"The downside of changing your brand is that it makes the consumer wonder what the brand really stands for," Tristano said. "It moves away from what the brand strategy is. It's like Starbucks offering a broader breakfast selection. What's it going to become known as: a breakfast place or better coffee chain?"

 

An acute case of this, Tristano said, is a morphed Boston Market outlet near Chicago, where he lives. Hoping to compete with a nearby Whole Foods store, the Boston Market upscaled its products and began selling food by the pound.

 

"When I take my kids to a regular Boston Market, I want the half chicken meal and two kids' meals. But when I walk in to this one, I've got to pay for the food differently; they weigh it and I pay six to eight dollars a pound," he said. "They took away the value position and the in-store dining; it's almost all counter.

"When I drive by now, I see more servers in there than customers."

 

Tristano noted some express concepts of casual-dining chains that do work well, including Wolfgang Puck Express and Me-n-Ed's Slices (a spin-off of Me-n-Ed's Pizzeria). They've succeeded, he said, because the core product remains the star of the show, they represent the brand well, and the operators have simplified the menu and production procedures without sacrificing quality.

 

"Wolfgang Puck's is a great example of getting a great quality pizza for a fair amount of money," he said. "They work well in airports or places where maybe people's expectations already are different."