Last April, Stan Frankenthaler left his job as vice president for global product innovation and culinary at Dunkin’ Brands — parent company of Dunkin’ Donuts and Baskin Robbins, to take charge of all things food-and-beverage related at CraftWorks Restaurant and Brewery Group.
There, as chief officer of food, beverage and strategic supply, the award-winning chef is working on evolving CraftWorks’ three main chains — Old Chicago Pizza & Taproom, Gordon Biersch Brewery Restaurant and Rock Bottom Restaurant & Brewery — as well as eight smaller brands, including ChopHouse & Brewery and a casual steak and seafood house that Frankenthaler sees as the company’s newest growth vehicle.
Frankenthaler, who was the 2012 MenuMasters Innovator of the Year, discussed how he’s evolving those brands, as well as what he sees as the future of casual dining.
Q: What are you working on?
A: There’s a lot going on across all of our brands — a lot of menu evolution and brand evolution. That would include all of our beverages.
On the beer side of things, Gordon Biersch was founded on the notion of making beers based on the Rhineheitsgebot [the German beer purity law that only allow the use of hops, malt and water], and that has not really changed over time. The brand is close to 30 years old, and times change, guests change, consumer sentiment changes, so we’re really looking to evolve our beer strategy, but based on our roots from the German tradition of brewing — the exactness, the purity, the authenticity.
So we want to [expand] the variety of beer, but we want them all to have provenance. We want them all to have a very clearly delineated story of heritage, authenticity, quality of ingredients and quality of brewing. So we’re looking at styles of beer that also come from a European tradition — some great Belgian ales and wonderful English and Scottish ales — and American-style IPAs. We feel that evolution is right in touch with our customers. They have a broader desire, and we’d like to fill that with our crafted beers.
Q: Is your approach to beer different for the other concepts?
A: On the Rock Bottom side, “totally local” is what we’re calling it. We have a much broader scope, much broader palette of ingredients, and we really look at the whole world of beer as our inspiration.
Q: So if you wanted to add blackberries to your beer, you could do it?
A: Absolutely. In fact, one of the local brewers here [in Denver] made a java pale — a lighter beer with coffee — and it was fabulous. Another one is Hop Bomb. It has double or triple the hops of a typical IPA recipe. For other beers, we’ll focus on a single hop.
One of the things that’s really important to the customer and the brands themselves is to keep them distinct and differentiated. To me, the power of the portfolio company from a business point of view is that brand distinction, because your customers can use you for different occasions.
So for a date or a special occasion, you go to Gordon Biersch or ChopHouse. To hang out with the guys, you go to Rock Bottom. For a fun night with pizza, Old Chicago. If we can make that distinction to our guests, it’s a really positive thing, and my objective here is to lead this brand evolution for each and every one of our brands.
Q: How about in terms of food?
A: At Gordon Biersch we are a little more than half way through a very big alpha test of a complete menu redesign that we’ll launch into our next set of stores before Thanksgiving across the Baltimore-Washington market.
We’re really centering the brand back on being a local brewery and craft kitchen — chefs lead all of our kitchens and we cook from scratch — and [we] put that originality back on our menus. I guess all brands over time might drift, and where we drifted was probably into a bit of commonness and sameness with our fellow casual dining restaurants.
So we’re returning to the idea of a modern, crafted cuisine with our own twist. We’ve brought in wild salmon, grass-fed beef for our sliders, yellowfin tuna, some Prime beef. A core item at Gordon Biersch has been garlic fries, but they had drifted [in terms of quality]. Now we’re back to virgin oil, great potatoes, hand-chopped garlic, and we’ve developed a whole section of the menu around them. Customers can pick their beef or seafood and choose their sauce, and they all come with garlic fries. You can choose an Angus top sirloin or a beautiful New York strip or swordfish or tuna, and you can have it with Béarnaise sauce, mushroom beer sauce, red wine reduction, lemon-caper or roasted garlic gorgonzola cream sauce.
Our desserts also hadn’t had a lot of innovation in quite awhile, so now we’ve got a really nice dessert crêpe, a crème brûlée with berries and shortbread cookies — very traditional but brûléed to order — little pieces of flourless chocolate cake, and our signature dessert which is apple-pecan bread pudding.
A great opportunity with a great challenge
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Q: How about Rock Bottom Brewery?
A: When Rock Bottom started, it was more Colorado or Southwest cuisine — and I distinguish the two. We want to pay tribute to those roots, but be evolutionary in spreading those roots and looking at the bold flavors and comfort foods of the Americas. So we’re looking at Peruvian and Brazilian and Colombian foods. We’ll be playing with some of those new chiles and ceviches and beans, and great street foods out of those traditions that we’re really interested in.
There are also comfort foods that we’re really good at. We make a chicken and bacon mac & cheese that’s so craveable that I have to stop myself from ordering it every time. We make some great New Orleans-style food and great Mexican food. Those we’re going to keep as we explore and grow our reach across the Americas.
Q: How do you distinguish Colorado cuisine from Southwestern cuisine?
A: I think Colorado probably has little more straight-up Latin influence, actually, where Southwest is a softer expression with a little more American wrapped into it.
Q: How about Old Chicago?
A: Old Chicago is probably the farthest along its path of evolution, and -- for me -- it’s also the brand that I didn’t know before I came out here, really just based on geography. They’re primarily Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado and Minnesota, and they just weren’t on my path before. But what a comfortable brand it is — just about sharing and relaxing. It’s the hometown menu with fantastic pizza, great salads, great burgers.
We’re launching a new menu systemwide November 3 with some great new pizzas, and we’re expanding the flavors of our wings and sauces.
Q: What kinds of flavors?
A: We’ve traditionally done things more Buffalo-related or Italian, and we’ve expanded that collection to include some Caribbean spices, a great Thai fire sauce that’s a combination of heat and spice and aromatics, and we’re doing this great dry-rubbed garlic and parmesan that goes through the pizza oven that’s really delicious.
Q: Why did you decide to move to Craftworks from Dunkin’ Brands?
A: The Craftworks position was a great opportunity with a great challenge behind it. For me, the exciting part was thinking about big kitchens and chefs running the kitchens. Great breweries, great kitchens, great equipment — that was really exciting to me. And expansive menus that touch many dayparts and have many platforms to them. And then I guess maybe the third area was just opportunity within the casual-dining space. Casual dining has this great opportunity in my mind to really advance.
We know casual dining really took it on the chin during the recession. Now, as the economy continues to sort of stagger along through recovery, it feels like casual dining can be the beneficiary of that. My belief is that those casual dining restaurants that really do cook from scratch will be the go-to choice for those customers who don’t want to spend $100 on fine dining. I think our restaurants have the opportunity to do that.
Contact Bret Thorn: [email protected].
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