September 2004

Cover Story: Chief Execution Officer
Selected by industry leaders, CEO and Chairman Rick Federico has just won Chain Leader's Execution Award. His peers applaud how he took P.F. Chang’s China Bistro public with a challenging IPO and launched its fast-casual offshoot, Pei Wei. The company reached $559.2 million in revenues in 2003 and expects $727 million this year. Chain Leader spoke to Federico about his company, leadership, the industry and where it is heading.
By Charles Bernstein

Storyboard: In Living Color
After surveying customers for its new client, Coppell, Texas-based CiCi’s Pizza, ad agency Deutsch Inc. began to see the disparity between the budget pizza concept and its QSR competitors. It created an ad campaign to show the differences, using black-and-white “hidden camera” footage to reveal QSR crimes and color video of helpful CiCi’s servers.
By Margaret Littman

Restauratour: Suburban Sprawl
Chicago-area fans of Flat Top Grill like the do-it-yourself stir-fry restaurant for its citified atmosphere. They would hardly recognize the new Flat Top Grill in a Peoria, Ill., lifestyle mall. To appeal to suburban families, the bigger unit features a sky-high ceiling, smaller bar, bright cream and yellow walls and lots of live plants.
By Lisa Bertagnoli

Toque Of The Town: World's Fare
Reinhard Dorfhuber condenses experience won at first-class hotels and restaurants in Europe, Canada and the Far East into menus that bring global tastes to American families. The senior vice president of culinary and concept development for Goleta, Calif.-based Elephant Bar Restaurant turns the menu into a passport to world flavors.
By Monica Rogers

Brand Tactics: Twice Baked
Drop the word “bagels” from the name. Expand the menu from bagel-centric to feature freshly prepared salads, sandwiches and soups. Change the decor to a more upscale, comfortable look. What have you got? Bruegger’s aggressive strategy to morph a beleaguered bagel brand into a fast-casual bakery cafe.
By Donna Hood Crecca

Growth Strategy: Hawaii To Go
Hawaiian staples like kalua pig and lau lau may not be familiar in the continental United States just yet, but they soon will be, if the owners of L&L have their way. They predict that it’s only a matter of time before those Hawaiian dishes and others become part of the American fast-food lexicon when they open more than 100 units in two years.
By Maya Norris

Road Trip: L.A. Expert
Former Baja Fresh CEO Greg Dollarhyde takes Chain Leader for a drive around West Los Angeles to see a crop of what he calls “good food, fast” restaurants. The L.A. native is trying to find another big hit. “You get to see so many more decors and menu items than elsewhere, and what you are seeing is almost always on the cutting edge,” he explains.
By David Farkas

Site Lines: Niche Marketing
It’s not easy finding space for an 8,000-square-foot restaurant. That’s why Phillips Foods, the Baltimore-based operator of seven Phillips Seafood restaurants, is expanding into airports and other smaller locations with a spinoff concept called Phillips Famous Seafood. Checks and volumes are lower, of course, but the returns are positive.
By Lisa Bertagnoli

Food Safety: Custom Fit
It was only a matter of time before a restaurant chain would want to develop customized tools to piggyback on ServSafe, the NRA Educational Foundation’s food-safety training program. Wendy’s worked with NRAEF to develop a two-day training program for the chain’s managers based on its own systems.
By Christine Zimmerman

The Bernstein Perspective: Citizen Cain

Editorial: Minimum Efforts