Macaroni Grill closes all 5 Missouri restaurantsMacaroni Grill closes all 5 Missouri restaurants

Romano’s Macaroni Grill shuttered all five of its restaurants in the Missouri market this week as parent company Ignite Restaurant Group Inc. continues to close underperforming units of the brand.

Houston-based Ignite, which also operates the Joe’s Crab Shack and Brick House Tavern Tap casual-dining concepts, closed Macaroni Grill restaurants in the Branson, Columbia and St. Louis areas.

“Mac Grill, as most brands do, has been closing isolated underperforming restaurants as the leases come up for renewal,” said John Gilbert, president of the Macaroni Grill division, in an email Tuesday.

“In the case of St. Louis, this was the primary reason, coupled with selling some locations to other brands,” Gilbert wrote. “Nothing bigger.”

At least one of the Missouri Macaroni Grill locations will be torn down to make way for a new 5,000-square-foot Chick-fil-A restaurant, the Columbia Daily Tribune reported Monday. Chick-fil-A said its Columbia, Mo., restaurant would open in the second half of 2015.

Before the Missouri closures, Ignite had already closed 14 Macaroni Grill units by October, bringing the brand’s unit count to 167 locations. Ignite acquired Macaroni Grill in April 2013.

For the most recent third quarter, Ignite said same-store sales declined 8.5 percent at Macaroni Grill and fell 4.4 percent at Joe’s Crab Shack, but rose 7.5 percent at Brick House Tavern Tap.

To help increase traffic, Macaroni Grill unveiled in October a concept-within-a-concept, fast-casual lunch format called Romano’s Kitchen Counter inside 131 of its company-owned, domestic casual-dining restaurants.

The new offering, called the Kitchen Counter, is open from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. and intends to give lunch customers a faster, less expensive option than its traditional full-service menu.

In an Oct. 29 conference call with analysts, Ray Blanchette, Ignite’s president and chief executive, called the Kitchen Counter “a very bold stroke for a casual-dining chain with a national footprint,” with a value proposition focused on 12 entrées priced at $7 and prepared in seven minutes or less.

Blanchette suggested the counter-service option could be expanded to the dinner daypart.

Blanchette also said Ignite was “aggressively” managing the underlying Macaroni Grill real estate portfolio and had sought a consultant’s help in evaluating more closures and lease terminations.

Blanchette called it a “continued rationalization of the Mac Grill portfolio to conversions, sales and closures.”

Ignite reported in late October that its net loss widened in the Sept. 30-ended third quarter, to $6.5 million, or 25 cents per share, from a loss of $1.9 million, or eight cents per share, during the same quarter a year ago. Revenue during the third quarter fell 5.4 percent, to $215.2 million, from $227.6 million during the prior-year quarter.

In addition to Macaroni Grill, Ignite owns and operates 138 Joe’s Crab Shack units and 21 Brick House locations. It had 334 restaurants open at the end of the Sept. 30-ended quarter.

Contact Ron Ruggless at [email protected].
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