LOS ANGELES —At the 48th annual Multi-Unit Foodservice Operators conference this month, winners of this year’s Hot Concepts! awards debated the challenges of growing up with a concerted focus on being a brand.
This year’s winners were Honolulu-based Gyu-Kaku Japanese BBQ; San Francisco-based Go Roma Italian Kitchen; St. Louis Park, Minn.-based Granite City Food & Brewery; Atlanta-based The Grape; as well as WingStreet and Which Wich, both based in Dallas. Also on the panel was the Hot! Again Award winner: Warren, Mich.-based Big Boy Restaurants International. —At the 48th annual Multi-Unit Foodservice Operators conference this month, winners of this year’s Hot Concepts! awards debated the challenges of growing up with a concerted focus on being a brand.
The awards program was sponsored by The NPD Group. —At the 48th annual Multi-Unit Foodservice Operators conference this month, winners of this year’s Hot Concepts! awards debated the challenges of growing up with a concerted focus on being a brand.
Despite the diversity of concepts, a common theme among the panelists representing them was a desire to hold on to the enterprising vision that gave them their start. —At the 48th annual Multi-Unit Foodservice Operators conference this month, winners of this year’s Hot Concepts! awards debated the challenges of growing up with a concerted focus on being a brand.
“It’s a challenge to keep that great entrepreneurial spirit now that we have more established systems in place,” said Lisken Lawler, director of concept development and national marketing for Yum! Brands, which owns the WingStreet chicken-wing-delivery concept that is co-branded with branches of the franchisor’s Pizza Hut system. —At the 48th annual Multi-Unit Foodservice Operators conference this month, winners of this year’s Hot Concepts! awards debated the challenges of growing up with a concerted focus on being a brand.
WingStreet, which began in 2003 and now has more than 1,000 locations, grew region by region but at a rapid clip, she said. —At the 48th annual Multi-Unit Foodservice Operators conference this month, winners of this year’s Hot Concepts! awards debated the challenges of growing up with a concerted focus on being a brand.
“We found an opportunity in a market no one was delivering on: the combination of pizza and wings,” Lawler said. “There were 6,000 Pizza Huts out there, and we had a lot of opportunity to expand.” —At the 48th annual Multi-Unit Foodservice Operators conference this month, winners of this year’s Hot Concepts! awards debated the challenges of growing up with a concerted focus on being a brand.
Jeff Sinelli, founder and chief executive of Which Wich, said he wasn’t sure how big he wanted his chain to grow. Now with about 30 units, Which Wich averages about $700,000 per-location annually from units that typically are about 2,000 square feet, though some have sales topping $1 million. —At the 48th annual Multi-Unit Foodservice Operators conference this month, winners of this year’s Hot Concepts! awards debated the challenges of growing up with a concerted focus on being a brand.
Sinelli said the “how big” question keeps him up at night. —At the 48th annual Multi-Unit Foodservice Operators conference this month, winners of this year’s Hot Concepts! awards debated the challenges of growing up with a concerted focus on being a brand.
“I feel we’re on the horizon of a billion-dollar brand,” he said. “Definitely hundreds if not thousands of units.” —At the 48th annual Multi-Unit Foodservice Operators conference this month, winners of this year’s Hot Concepts! awards debated the challenges of growing up with a concerted focus on being a brand.
David Wolfgram, founder of eight-unit Go Roma Italian Kitchen, was less specific. —At the 48th annual Multi-Unit Foodservice Operators conference this month, winners of this year’s Hot Concepts! awards debated the challenges of growing up with a concerted focus on being a brand.
“I think we can get real big,” he said. —At the 48th annual Multi-Unit Foodservice Operators conference this month, winners of this year’s Hot Concepts! awards debated the challenges of growing up with a concerted focus on being a brand.
Like several of the Hot Concepts! winners this year, Go Roma had the advantage of starting out with an experienced founding family. Wolfgram and three other principals are former executives of Lettuce Entertain You Enterprises and Brinker International, and Wolfgram is co-founder and a former president of the Corner Bakery Cafe brand. —At the 48th annual Multi-Unit Foodservice Operators conference this month, winners of this year’s Hot Concepts! awards debated the challenges of growing up with a concerted focus on being a brand.
“With Go Roma, we had the right people in the right places from the beginning,” he said. —At the 48th annual Multi-Unit Foodservice Operators conference this month, winners of this year’s Hot Concepts! awards debated the challenges of growing up with a concerted focus on being a brand.
Granite City Food & Brewery also was founded by industry veterans, from the Littleton, Colo.-based Champp’s Americana chain. Typically around 8,800-square feet, Granite City units average about $4.5 million in annual sales. —At the 48th annual Multi-Unit Foodservice Operators conference this month, winners of this year’s Hot Concepts! awards debated the challenges of growing up with a concerted focus on being a brand.
Steve Wagenheim, Granite City’s president and chief executive, said a key to the 19-unit chain’s success has been its ability to “transcend every segment.” —At the 48th annual Multi-Unit Foodservice Operators conference this month, winners of this year’s Hot Concepts! awards debated the challenges of growing up with a concerted focus on being a brand.
The chain’s made-from-scratch menu and beers offer “high-end perception” at lower-end prices. —At the 48th annual Multi-Unit Foodservice Operators conference this month, winners of this year’s Hot Concepts! awards debated the challenges of growing up with a concerted focus on being a brand.
The concept also works in both second-tier and prime locations, giving the brand more flexibility with real estate, he said. —At the 48th annual Multi-Unit Foodservice Operators conference this month, winners of this year’s Hot Concepts! awards debated the challenges of growing up with a concerted focus on being a brand.
Granite City went public after opening only one store, Wagenheim added. “We operated in a fishbowl as we went from a well-run independent to a system chain,” he said. —At the 48th annual Multi-Unit Foodservice Operators conference this month, winners of this year’s Hot Concepts! awards debated the challenges of growing up with a concerted focus on being a brand.
Gyu-Kaku is owned by Reins International, which operates many restaurant brands in Japan with more than 800 locations. With 12 Gyu-Kaku units in the United States, “we are still small and unknown,” said Aki Yamaguchi, vice president of development for the chain of Japanese-style Korean-barbecue restaurants, “but businesswise, the numbers are working out.” —At the 48th annual Multi-Unit Foodservice Operators conference this month, winners of this year’s Hot Concepts! awards debated the challenges of growing up with a concerted focus on being a brand.
Asked how they’re dealing with rising food commodity prices, the panelists said they were striving to reduce costs, but also were raising menu tariffs. —At the 48th annual Multi-Unit Foodservice Operators conference this month, winners of this year’s Hot Concepts! awards debated the challenges of growing up with a concerted focus on being a brand.
Wagenheim of Granite City, for example, said its menu has relied more heavily on innovative specials that take advantage of lower-cost ingredients. —At the 48th annual Multi-Unit Foodservice Operators conference this month, winners of this year’s Hot Concepts! awards debated the challenges of growing up with a concerted focus on being a brand.
“Specials have grown to be about 15 percent of total sales,” he said. —At the 48th annual Multi-Unit Foodservice Operators conference this month, winners of this year’s Hot Concepts! awards debated the challenges of growing up with a concerted focus on being a brand.
Bill Hadden, executive vice president of marketing and innovation of Big Boy Restaurants International Inc., said a priority is menu management, with prices increasing on some key items but not others. —At the 48th annual Multi-Unit Foodservice Operators conference this month, winners of this year’s Hot Concepts! awards debated the challenges of growing up with a concerted focus on being a brand.
“We try to make value products available across all day-parts,” he said. —At the 48th annual Multi-Unit Foodservice Operators conference this month, winners of this year’s Hot Concepts! awards debated the challenges of growing up with a concerted focus on being a brand.
Increasing competition for top-quality workers was also a challenge, panelists said. —At the 48th annual Multi-Unit Foodservice Operators conference this month, winners of this year’s Hot Concepts! awards debated the challenges of growing up with a concerted focus on being a brand.
“You really have to do all you can to find, train and make them stay,” said Jeff Pendleton, co-founder of The Grape, a 19-unit wine bar. For The Grape, education is key to ensure workers know the wines they sell, he said, but it also builds loyalty. —At the 48th annual Multi-Unit Foodservice Operators conference this month, winners of this year’s Hot Concepts! awards debated the challenges of growing up with a concerted focus on being a brand.
Panelists said the new generation in today’s labor pool wants to have fun at work, and, for many, quality of life is even more important than pay. Even managers are insisting on having a five-day work schedule with two days off each week. —At the 48th annual Multi-Unit Foodservice Operators conference this month, winners of this year’s Hot Concepts! awards debated the challenges of growing up with a concerted focus on being a brand.
“We have to give managers five days,” Wagenheim said. “It’s a new way, but it’s what they want.” —At the 48th annual Multi-Unit Foodservice Operators conference this month, winners of this year’s Hot Concepts! awards debated the challenges of growing up with a concerted focus on being a brand.
Added Hadden: “We want to have work fit into their life, not have work be their life.” —At the 48th annual Multi-Unit Foodservice Operators conference this month, winners of this year’s Hot Concepts! awards debated the challenges of growing up with a concerted focus on being a brand.
