LOS ANGELES The Cheesecake Factory Inc. is poised to debut an upscale concept it hopes will tap into a more economically stable demographic group. —At a time when restaurants are touting discounts and prix-fixe bargains to tempt customers feeling light in the wallet,
After three years of development, the new RockSugar Pan Asian Kitchen is scheduled to open here June 19 in the Westfield Century City shopping center. The 7,500-square-foot, 310-seat restaurant has a striking, Buddhist temple-inspired design with a soaring, 31-foot ceiling that is worlds apart from the glammed-up faux-Egyptian or European-bistro decor of the company’s namesake and Grand Lux Cafe chains. —At a time when restaurants are touting discounts and prix-fixe bargains to tempt customers feeling light in the wallet,
With a menu that borrows from Thailand,Vietnam, East India and Malaysia, RockSugar is geared to generate an average check of more than $20, higher than the average tabs of $18 at Cheesecake Factory and $19 at Grand Lux. —At a time when restaurants are touting discounts and prix-fixe bargains to tempt customers feeling light in the wallet,
Unlike its sister brands, RockSugar will take reservations, and it boasts a chef with exalted fine-dining credentials. —At a time when restaurants are touting discounts and prix-fixe bargains to tempt customers feeling light in the wallet,
RockSugar is designed as another potential growth vehicle that could go into the same high-volume markets as its sister brands without sales cannibalization. Chief executive David Overton has mentioned Las Vegas as a possible second market, but Howard Gordon, The Cheesecake Factory’s senior vice president for business development and marketing, says it is too soon to be definite about future growth. —At a time when restaurants are touting discounts and prix-fixe bargains to tempt customers feeling light in the wallet,
The debut of the new Asian concept comes at a time when, as with most casual-dining players, sales have been slipping at 141-unit Cheesecake Factory and 13-unit Grand Lux. First-quarter same-store sales were down 1.8 percent systemwide, and net income slipped to $14.3 million, from $18.4 million for the same quarter a year earlier. —At a time when restaurants are touting discounts and prix-fixe bargains to tempt customers feeling light in the wallet,
Earlier this year, Overton disclosed plans to cut the company’s number of new openings almost in half from the 17 proposed last October. —At a time when restaurants are touting discounts and prix-fixe bargains to tempt customers feeling light in the wallet,
Meanwhile, changes in management are being made at the Calabasas Hills, Calif.-based company. Russ Bendel, Cheesecake Factory’s restaurant division president since last September, stepped down suddenly last month to take a position with an unspecified new venture, and Gordon also has announced plans to leave the company after the second quarter to launch his own consulting firm, the Los Angeles-based Gordon Group. —At a time when restaurants are touting discounts and prix-fixe bargains to tempt customers feeling light in the wallet,
Some analysts say Cheesecake Factory should focus on the loyal customers at its two existing brands to get back on track. Overton recently told analysts that the company had hired a consultant to look at pricing strategies. —At a time when restaurants are touting discounts and prix-fixe bargains to tempt customers feeling light in the wallet,
The Cheesecake Factory has raised its prices 3 percent over the past year and is looking at another 1 percent increase this summer, but many in casual dining say prices can’t go much higher in the current climate. —At a time when restaurants are touting discounts and prix-fixe bargains to tempt customers feeling light in the wallet,
Among tactics that Cheesecake Factory is considering to boost softening sales are home delivery and catering in some markets. —At a time when restaurants are touting discounts and prix-fixe bargains to tempt customers feeling light in the wallet,
For its part, RockSugar Pan Asian Kitchen is expected to appeal to diners who are not as worried about filling their gas tanks, as are many patrons of lower-scale dining concepts, including perhaps even The Cheesecake Factory. —At a time when restaurants are touting discounts and prix-fixe bargains to tempt customers feeling light in the wallet,
Set in an open-air “lifestyle” center in the high-end Century City area between Beverly Hills and Westwood, RockSugar aims to draw a younger crowd than its sibling brands and expects affluent local businesses to patronize its private-party rooms. —At a time when restaurants are touting discounts and prix-fixe bargains to tempt customers feeling light in the wallet,
Rick McCormack, Cheesecake Factory’s vice president of design, has filled the room with carved wood, Buddhas and yin-yang elements of water and fire. In high alcoves along the walls of the main dining room, Thai statuettes holding electric candles gaze down serenely at diners. —At a time when restaurants are touting discounts and prix-fixe bargains to tempt customers feeling light in the wallet,
The outside patio is warmed from underneath the Chinese floor tiles.Acoustic insulation hides behind the towering, open-slat ceiling. A long entryway through an open-air courtyard is designed to give diners the feeling of leaving the busy mall far behind. —At a time when restaurants are touting discounts and prix-fixe bargains to tempt customers feeling light in the wallet,
“Our mantra was that it’s not Cheesecake Factory,” McCormack said. “David Overton said from the beginning that he didn’t want to have any elements of Cheesecake Factory in this at all.” —At a time when restaurants are touting discounts and prix-fixe bargains to tempt customers feeling light in the wallet,
Unlike The Cheesecake Factory and Grand Lux Cafe, which have more than 200 menu items, RockSugar likely will have only about 60 dishes on its menu. —At a time when restaurants are touting discounts and prix-fixe bargains to tempt customers feeling light in the wallet,
The menu was developed by chef Mohan Ismail, whose fine-dining background includes stints at the New York restaurants Blue Hill and Jean-Georges Vongerichten’s Spice Market. —At a time when restaurants are touting discounts and prix-fixe bargains to tempt customers feeling light in the wallet,
Ismail, who is originally from Singapore, said he borrowed the authentic tastes and ingredients of dishes found in Southeast Asia, but “the flavors have been a little bit toned down, in terms of things like the intensity of the fish sauce.” —At a time when restaurants are touting discounts and prix-fixe bargains to tempt customers feeling light in the wallet,
“We want it to be accepted by the general public,” he said. —At a time when restaurants are touting discounts and prix-fixe bargains to tempt customers feeling light in the wallet,
Ismail brought some dishes, like the chicken samosas and pork vindaloo, from his days as chef at Kalustyan’s, a spice shop in New York with a restaurant. —At a time when restaurants are touting discounts and prix-fixe bargains to tempt customers feeling light in the wallet,
Examples of other dishes he developed for RockSugar include glazed-duck salad with pine nuts, grapefruit and pomegranate; shrimp with red onions, ginger and scallions in a caramel sauce; and Indian stuffed flat bread with spicy homemade ketchup. —At a time when restaurants are touting discounts and prix-fixe bargains to tempt customers feeling light in the wallet,
There will be familiar dishes, such as pad Thai, but it likely would be called something like Thai noodles, and it would be more like the versions found in Asia that are “lighter and not as sweet,” he said. —At a time when restaurants are touting discounts and prix-fixe bargains to tempt customers feeling light in the wallet,
“There won’t be anything on the menu that will be weird,” Mohan said. “It’ll be things they’ve seen in the past, and I’m not trying to do fusion.” —At a time when restaurants are touting discounts and prix-fixe bargains to tempt customers feeling light in the wallet,
The restaurant will have a full bar, and officials expect a brisk takeout business, so a separate area in the front has been designated for to-go diners to pick up and pay. —At a time when restaurants are touting discounts and prix-fixe bargains to tempt customers feeling light in the wallet,
Two things that will not be on RockSugar’s menu are Chinese and Japanese dishes. —At a time when restaurants are touting discounts and prix-fixe bargains to tempt customers feeling light in the wallet,
Industry observers proclaimed the arrival of Japanese cuisine in the American dining mainstream after Scottsdale, Ariz.-based P.F. Chang’s China Bistro developed Taneko Japanese Tavern, an upscale one-off concept in the style of an izakaya pub. Whether that concept will travel remains to be seen. After about a year, P.F. Chang’s sought to sell a majority interest in Taneko to Dallas-based multiconcept operator Jack Baum, but the deal later fell through. —At a time when restaurants are touting discounts and prix-fixe bargains to tempt customers feeling light in the wallet,
Nonetheless, Jerry Prendergast, a Los Angeles-based consultant who works primarily with independent fine-dining operators, said Cheesecake Factory officials are smart to tap into the huge demand for upscale Asian dining. —At a time when restaurants are touting discounts and prix-fixe bargains to tempt customers feeling light in the wallet,
“You can see by the success of restaurants like Koi and Nobu that there’s a huge market for that kind of upscale mixture of food,” he said, “and Thai and Vietnamese have taken over [the] Asian [category].” —At a time when restaurants are touting discounts and prix-fixe bargains to tempt customers feeling light in the wallet,
Prendergast also noted that restaurants in West Los Angeles have not felt the economic downturn chains elsewhere in the city have experienced. —At a time when restaurants are touting discounts and prix-fixe bargains to tempt customers feeling light in the wallet,
“People are hurting in places like the [San Fernando] Valley, Palmdale or Calabasas,” he said. —At a time when restaurants are touting discounts and prix-fixe bargains to tempt customers feeling light in the wallet,
Los Angeles-based restaurant consultant Scott Hindell said concepts that blur the lines between segments sometimes have greater appeal in a sluggish economy. RockSugar’s positioning at the high end of casual dining may be attractive to consumers who feel they are getting a fine-dining experience at a casual-dining price point, he said. —At a time when restaurants are touting discounts and prix-fixe bargains to tempt customers feeling light in the wallet,
“Hopefully, [Cheesecake Factory officials] are letting it stand on its own as a different animal,” Hindell said. “But they know how to run the front- and back-of the-house better than anybody. At the end of the day, people want something easily identifiable and familiar, and Cheesecake Factory is good at that.” —At a time when restaurants are touting discounts and prix-fixe bargains to tempt customers feeling light in the wallet,