Noah’s New York Bagels has officially pulled the wraps off its first new restaurant in several years, providing a blueprint for new units and design elements for an ongoing remodeling program, president Tyler Ricks said.
Noah’s, a division of JAB Holding Co.’s Einstein Noah Restaurant Group, opened the new 2,300-square-foot restaurant in Oakland, Calif., and introduced such new elements as a tap coffee and tea system and modernized colors. Noah’s also streamlined operations by introducing a new customer flow and payment format.
“We have implemented a pay-first flow to our stores,” Ricks told Nation’s Restaurant News. “We used to have a terminal for ordering and a terminal for payment.”
The new customer flow allows ordering and payment at one terminal.
Noah’s plans to open four units this year that incorporate the new design, Ricks said.
“We’d only opened five new stores in 20 years for Noah’s, and now we’ll do five new stores and 15 remodels in one year,” he said. “This is a tremendously exciting time for the Noah’s brand.”
Noah’s has 54 restaurants, all in California.
The Oakland prototype, which opened in Temescal Plaza in a location that formerly housed an independent delicatessen, is about 30- to 40-percent larger than older Noah’s restaurants, Ricks said. Future units will cover 2,300-2,500 square feet, compared with an average size of older units at 1,750-1,800 square feet. Seating will accommodate 25 to 40 customers, compared with 12 to 15 at older locations.
Newer units will also include more electrical outlets and robust Wi-Fi for customers. But still at the heart of the design is food preparation.
“We probably have 70 percent of the space in the middle of house and back of house for food prep and equipment,” Ricks said. “We have ovens and proofers. We could reduce the size of the footprint if we wanted to reduce some of the quality. But that’s the hallmark of who we are, and that requires more equipment in the back of the house.”
The new prototype features wood floors and more muted colors than in older units, but the design remembers the brand’s heritage.
“We’ve incorporated a lot of the Noah’s historical design elements, like the subway tile and the blue and white colors,” Ricks said.
A new feature is a coffee and tea tap system. The Oakland location has six coffees and teas on tap.
“It’s a focal point,” Ricks said. “It’s like a tap system you would find in a bar, but it has two cold-brew coffees and four cold-brew teas. You can sit at the counter as if you were in front of a tap system at the bar.”
The draught system offers tea lattes; kombucha; and cold-brew green, black and nitro teas.
The paint colors, artwork and furniture updates have been added to 11 older Noah’s units, and Ricks expects four more remodels to be completed by year’s end.
Ricks, who served as chief marketing officer of Peet’s Coffee & Tea, another JAB Holding brand, moved to Noah’s in early 2016. JAB Holding acquired Lakewood, Colo.-based Einstein Noah Restaurant Group for $374 million in September 2014.
“We spent the first 12 to 15 months when I came on looking at the consumer research and positioning and the new concept,” Ricks said. “We’re now at the point where we’re opening the stores and doing the remodels.”
Noah’s, which debuted in Berkeley, Calif., in 1989, has moved into catering and has grown off-premise revenue to between 22 percent and 23 percent of sales, Ricks said.
“It’s growing at about three times the rate” of sales at the stores, Ricks said. “We’ve tried to design the prep space and customer pick-up areas in mind.”
Ricks said Temescal Plaza is in a gentrifying, up-and-coming area.
“It’s kind of a hipster area in Oakland,” he said.
The new prototype was produced with San Francisco-based Tesser, a design and branding firm that has worked with restaurants and foodservice companies including Wendy’s, Ben & Jerry’s, Chili’s Grill & Bar, Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen, Chuck E. Cheese’s and Sheetz.
Tré Musco, chief creative officer at Tesser, said in a statement that the new design’s baking “theater” was important to the branding.
“It was important to highlight Noah’s visually engaging art of baking to remind customers that Noah’s bakes fresh bagels on site throughout the day, so we designed a baking area that showcased the artisan baking process,” Musco said. “By making the ovens visible through a glass window, customers can see the baker seeding, proofing and baking fresh bagels at each location.”
Noah’s has been pleased with the customer reaction to the new design and remodels.
“I believe it elevates the brand and cleans up the concept and the design,” Ricks said.
Contact Ron Ruggless at [email protected]
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