North Italia, the product of Fox Restaurant Concepts and The Cheesecake Factory, has sped up expansion in the past several years.
The brand ranked No. 165 in the Technomic Top 50 with U.S. sales of $259 million. Two more units opened in the first quarter of this year, and another was opened in May of the second quarter in Ballantyne, N.C., south of Charlotte. That brought the unit count to 40.
David Gordon, in a first-quarter earnings call, said North Italia’s same-store sales increased 3% from the prior year, resulting in annualized average unit volumes of $7.7 million. Total sales for North Italia in the quarter were $70.9 million, up 12% from the prior-year period, according to Matt Clark, The Cheesecake Factory’s chief financial officer.
Gordon added that the lunch-dinner mix was about 35%-65%, much the same as before The Cheesecake Factory acquired the brand alongside the rest of Fox Restaurant Concepts in 2019.
“One of the areas of growth at North … is just the off-premises growth over time,” Gordon said. “Off-premises sales at North were 14% in the [first] quarter, which I think is the highest quarter that we've had. So we're pretty excited to see that. I think our partnership with DoorDash, some of the marketing benefit we get, has been helpful at North.”
The Cheesecake Factory has an exclusive third-party delivery relationship with DoorDash.
North Italia has been raising its profile through localized marketing activations, such as SXSW in Austin, Texas, in 2023, when the brand provided signature pizzas around Pi Day (March 14). It then sampled items at the offsite free Racing Fan Fest during the Formula One Grand Prix in May in Miami, where the brand has four area restaurants.
DJ Duporte, marketing director for North Italia, said that for both SXSW and the Racing Fan Fest, “the whole point is to stay as connected to the community as we can.”
“South Florida is a growth market for us,” he said. “We just opened up two restaurants in Aventura and Fort Lauderdale in a little under six months.” The company also has a five-year-old unit in Brickell and another in Dadeland.
“We knew that Fan Fest was that opportunity where it was going to bring the entire community together,” he said. Formula One racing, which had its third race in Miami in May, is a fairly new sport as well, Duporte said.
“The whole goal is to bring our handcrafted experience outside of our walls,” he said, and increase exposure for the brand.
Donald Evans, chief marketing officer and head of marketing for North Italia, added that “activations are very much about local impressions, and so for this event we're really trying to make an impact in the Florida market. We saw an opportunity to take advantage of Formula One.”
The brand created a racing-themed outlet at the Miami Fan Fest. Duporte said the planners worked with the marketing team as well as operations and culinary to create the venue.
“We know that Italian is ubiquitous,” he said. “We try to distinguish ourselves by being local. As we're growing, we know that's not easy. But putting out events like this should make it just a little bit easier to show the local communities how much we care about them.”
North Italia was founded in 2002 in Tucson, Ariz.
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