MCLEAN Va. Casual-dining operators seeking greener pastures are flocking to view a European-born restaurant concept with radically different ideas about equipment, design and service.
The concept, called Vapiano, carves a unique niche that its founders call “fresh casual” Italian dining, or in other words, fresh, high-volume, scratch-made meals. Exhibition cooking is integrated into the dining room at four freestanding food islands offering pasta, pizza, salads and full bar service. Patrons in a hurry can have the equivalent of a fast-casual meal, and those with time may linger over several courses with wine, dessert and cappuccino. Making it possible are bells and whistles like high-speed induction woks, automated pasta cookers, a gleaming chrome plancha griddle and a “chip card” system that make it easy for guests to pay at the end of their meal.
The concept is the brainchild of McLean, Va.-based Vapiano International LLC, a subsidiary of the German company Vapiano AG, which has 31 restaurants in nine countries. Stateside, there are three Vapiano units, one in Washington, D.C., and two in nearby Virginia. With interest running high in Vapiano, there may be as many as 10 open by the end of the year.
“A lot of casual-dining guys are jumping ship and getting involved here,” said Dan Rowe, founder and CEO of Fransmart, Vapiano’s Alexandria, Va.-based development agent. “Casual dining is just taking it on the chin.”
Expansion territories have been sold in Boston, Dallas-Fort Worth and southwest Florida, Rowe said. Ultimately, he envisions 400 to 500 U.S. units.
Vapiano cuts a distinctive figure thanks to the work of Milanese designer Matteo Thun. He arranged the four cooking islands in a space decorated with slate, marble and natural flourishes like an herb garden and olive tree. The restaurants average 5,000 to 7,000 square feet in size with 150 to 200 seats. Annual volumes run in the $2 million to $4 million range. The per-person check average is $18, which breaks down to $9 to $10 at lunch and $22 to $25 at dinner.
Vapiano marches to its own drummer when it comes to equipment, starting with an all-electric kitchen, which its owners believe is cleaner than gas. Even though it costs about twice as much to use electric as gas, Rowe says Vapiano’s numbers are nevertheless very good. That’s due to its high sales, the low food cost of its pasta-and-pizza-dominated menu and the operational efficiencies that keep combined food, paper and labor costs down to about 55 percent.
At the Vapiano pasta station, pasta is cooked to order in about two minutes. There is a two-basket electric pasta maker with automatic lifts that yank the product out of the water when it’s done, ensuring consistency. In addition, there is a booster system that keeps the cooking water at the proper temperature even when cold pasta is added. For tossing the pasta in its sauce, there are two powerful 5 kilowat induction woks that heat “almost microwave fast,” Rowe said. Among the choices are a classic pasta Bolognese, $8.95, and pasta with salsiccia calabrese, $10.95, made with spicy sausage, white beans and sun-dried tomatoes.
Pizzas are baked in a double- or triple-deck Italian oven in as little as 90 seconds. Heavily topped pies take up to three minutes. The selection ranges from a simple tomato sauce and mozzarella-topped margherita pizza, $7.95, to a more elaborate vitello tonnato pizza, $10.95, made with roasted veal slices, tuna cream, capers, tomato sauce and mozzarella.
Achrome plancha, or Spanish-style griddle, is prominent at the salad station. The large, high-heat cooking surface sautŽs multiple orders of shrimp, beef and chicken for salad toppings.
Having attractive equipment is important to Vapiano’s owners, who are mindful of how close its customers are to the action. In a casual-dining restaurants, customers may be 40 feet away from an exhibition kitchen, but they’re barely a foot or two away from Vapiano’s islands, Rowe points out. “Everything has to look good and be easy to clean in addition to doing all that wonderful stuff,” he said.
The bar serves everything from a three-olive martini, $7.75, to Peroni Italian draft beer, $4.75. A 19-item wine list offers mainly Italian choices priced at $5 to $11 per glass and $22 to $46 by the bottle.
“They do a crazy lounge business,” says Rowe, noting that a drink and a bite at Vapiano often precede a nightclub jaunt.
Each of the islands has its own ventilation hood, which Rowe attributed to the design motif of individual food islands as well as to practical reasons. “It’s all about making sure that when you go up for pasta, you to feel like it’s a pasta restaurant,” he said. “And when you go up for pizza, you feel like it’s a pizza restaurant.”