Jim Frye is founding father of the Italian Oven Café, a spin-off of varieties from his unique Italian Oven thought. The Italian Oven went public within the Nineteen Nineties, however floundered in a while thereafter. Now Frye is resurrecting the idea that in an abbreviated shape, following the lead of ideas like Starbucks and Panera Bread. Lately, there are two Italian Oven Café shops in operation: one in Pittsburgh and one in West Palm Seaside, Florida, the place the corporate is newly based totally.
PT: What served as inspiration for bringing again and tweaking the Italian Oven thought?
JF: Again in 2001, I used to be staring at with nice passion what Starbucks and Panera Bread have been doing. They have been providing an reasonably priced selection to informal eating that was once a bit nicer than rapid meals and a bit extra informal than full-service eating. I have been plotting my comeback with The Italian Oven and began fleshing out the speculation of turning The Italian Oven eating place into a quick informal eating place.
PT: What in particular appealed to you when it comes to providing a smaller eating place in this kind of industry type?
JF: I may just see the place lets construct a smaller retailer that was once more cost effective to construct and more cost effective to run when it comes to having no desk provider and having a smaller group of workers. However we’ve nonetheless stored a wood-fired oven as the center piece of the menu.
PT: What are your enlargement plans?
JF: The theory was once to create a emblem that lets take at the street and develop and promote franchises. We’ve had in far more than 100 franchise inquiries since we opened our retailer in West Palm Seaside. A few of the ones are simply folks coming in to kick the tires, however almost certainly 10-15 p.c of the ones have an excessively critical passion in construction an Italian Oven Café somewhere. That’s one of the most causes we selected West Palm Seaside for this prototype retailer — folks discuss with right here from everywhere the sector, in particular all through the height season.
PT: Velocity of provider is a very powerful in this kind of thought. How are you doing in that regard thus far?
JF: Inside of seven to 9 mins, folks get their meals. That’s the typical transaction time, together with the period of time it takes them to position their order. A meals runner brings the meals out to them on the desk. We put a just right meal in entrance of them in no time, and we use nicer napkins and dinnerware and nicer fabrics. Since there’s no desk provider, there’s no tipping. Folks admire it a perfect deal. We get nice frequency from our key constituents.
PT: What’s your moderate visitor test?
JF: It’s just a bit over $10.
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