Pasta Pomodoro under new ownershipPasta Pomodoro under new ownership

Lisa Jennings

SAN FRANCISCO The 30-unit Pasta Pomodoro chain has been acquired by two San Francisco Bay Area entrepreneurs who plan to revitalize the Italian casual-dining brand.

Terms of the deal, which closed Dec. 31, and was announced Tuesday, were not disclosed.

The new owners, Matthew Janopaul, now chief executive of Pasta Pomodoro, and Girish Satya, chief financial officer, purchased the chain from brand founder and former chief executive Adriano Paganini, a fine-dining chef who opened the first Pasta Pomodoro in San Francisco in 1994.

Other stakeholders that sold their respective shares include Wendy’s/Arby’s Group Inc., which held a position through Wendy’s International Inc., and private-equity firm Dorset Capital Management.

Janopaul and Satya worked together previously with the recent start up of Beautifull, a retail and meals-to-go food concept with two units in San Francisco. They were both brought in to get that concept off the ground, Janopaul said in an interview with Nation’s Restaurant News.

Janopaul sees Pasta Pomodoro as a more suburban brand that will compete well with neighborhood Italian restaurants.

In coming months, a new menu will be launched with more “authentic” recipes, and Janopaul said the company will attempt to better communicate its value proposition and food quality. Pasta Pomodoro’s proteins, for example, come from the highly regarded, all-natural Niman Ranch, but that is not made clear on the menu, he said.

The chain will also be brought under one brand as Pasta Pomodoro. Previous owners had changed the name of Southern California units to Pomodoro Cucina Italiana, while units in Northern California were called Pasta Pomodoro.

“2010 will be all about refining the brand,” said Janopaul.

Janopaul contends that the 15-year-old concept has a particular appeal in the current economy with its $20 to $25 average check and speedy table service.

When asked if more changes to management are planned, Janopaul said, “The management team at the operational and business level has been here, for the most part, for five to 10 years. So far, I’m very impressed with everyone.”

Janopaul was previously president and chief operating officer of guitar-maker Fender Musical Instruments. He is also a limited partner with Weston Presidio, a San Francisco-based private-equity firm which has included in its portfolio various consumer brands, including Fender. Weston’s foodservice brands have included Applebee’s franchisee American Apple Group LLC; Seattle-based Coffee Connection, which was later sold to Starbucks Corp.; and Jimmy John’s Gourmet Sandwich Shops.

Satya is described in press materials as a corporate turnaround specialist who worked most recently with professional services firm Alvarez and Marsal, or A&M. With that company, he worked with Levi Strauss and Co. to build earnings and restructure the retail brand’s real estate portfolio.

Pasta Pomodoro has a storied ownership history. Founder Paganini received venture capital funding in 2000 from private-equity firm Dorset Capital Management, and later in 2002 also brought in what was then Wendy’s International Inc., as a minority investor. At the time, the Dublin, Ohio-based burger giant was diversifying its investments to non-burger brands. Pasta Pomodoro grew quickly, at its peak reaching 46 units, but the difficult economic climate in the chain’s core market of California took its toll. Its sales declined and the chain had closed six units in recent months.

Janopaul blamed those closures on poor real estate decisions.

“Those leases were signed at the peak of the bubble, and the real estate part of it — whether or not the restaurants were performing — was broken,” he said.

No further closures are planned, he said, and Janopaul said Pasta Pomodoro will look for opportunities to grow again by 2011, with both new corporate units and possible franchise growth on the horizon.

Contact Lisa Jennings at [email protected].