With opening in Las Vegas, Tony and Roushan Christofellis keep labor costs low
Angie’s Food Concepts, owned by Salad and Go founders Tony and Roushan Christofellis, has expanded to Nevada with the opening of Angie’s Lobster in Las Vegas.
The Phoenix, Ariz.-based company, named for Christofellis’ late mother, Angie, has kept prices lower than traditional by having customers pick up some of the labor costs while focusing on the food supply chain, Christofellis said.
The company has also worked on the real estate, using a local designer.
“Our mission is to make these high-quality foods affordable,” Christofellis said.
“One of the biggest problems facing drive-thru fast food today is the consumer price,” he said. “We started Angie's Lobster when we exited Salad and Go.”
Angie’s Food Concepts opened its 11th location Aug. 22 in Flagstaff, Ariz. Christofellias said the company’s brands, Angie’s Lobster, Angie’s Prime Grill and Angies Burger, expect to have 15 brick-and-mortar units in Arizona and Nevada by year’s end.
The Christofellises sold out of Salad and Go to a private-equity firm several years ago, he said.
Offering luxury foods like lobster require pushing some costs to the consumers, he said.
“We basically say every hour of the day we want the consumer to do as much work as possible to help us provide these you know these luxury foods that you know fast food prices and by getting them to chip in,” Christofellis said.
“We ask consumer to do some work,” he said. “So we don't take any cash. Everything is self-service. We don't interact with them. We put their food on the shelf, they grab it and they go. That allows us to have fewer people working per hour.”
Consumers have shown some willingness to do that labor, Christofellis added.
“I believe the consumer wants to get the most value — especially the lower-income and middle-income consumer that's really strapped,” he said. “They want to get the most value they can, and, in the end, I think they'll forego some of this service some of these perks.”
Chrisofellis said the burger restaurant, Angie’s Burger, can still provide very high-quality sandwiches with drink and fries for $5. He works to keep the price of hormone-free chicken sandwiches with drink at about $7.69 and bowls at about $6.79.
The family-owned concepts also keep marketing expenses low, at about $500 for the company per week, Christofellis said.
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