It was once a chilly, dreary day when Pizza As of late visited Nashua, New Hampshire, final spring. Out of doors, a torrential downpour made the streets slick and darkish. However within two-story Lui Lui, the corporate’s outsized wood-burning oven took heart level, making the eating place as heat and alluring as owner Eric Roberts himself. Right here, convenience meals, smiling faces and abundant beverages reign, and it gave the impression to be simply the price tag for the diners lining the comfortable cubicles on this sort of wet afternoon.

The primary Lui Lui opened in 1991 in West Lebanon, New Hampshire, in what gave the impression to be a doomed location –– an outdated mill the place a number of different eating place makes an attempt had failed. Roberts, in conjunction with a few companions, noticed attainable, specifically a loss of do-it-yourself Italian meals within the house. It wasn’t sufficient to easily be offering pizza and pasta –– setting, they believed, was once additionally key to good fortune. Why pizza? “Everyone loves it,” Roberts says. “You develop up with it. And, it was once amusing. I went to Italy, I toured round there and had some nice pizza. It was once simply one thing that I knew and beloved, and felt happy with. “We employed over 100 other people to open that retailer, and it’s been a success ever since.”

5 years later, the second one location opened in Nashua (a suburb of Manchester) on a hectic freeway populated principally through huge chains. “There are only a few impartial eating places right here,” Roberts says. “It was once every other possibility, every other gamble. How had been we going to fare amongst most of these huge nationwide chains?”

It sounds as if nicely. As of late, the two-unit idea is slated to earn $6 million in gross sales.

Central to the eating places are their wood-burning ovens. The Nashua oven was once constructed through mason Peter Moore in Vermont; the 10-foot, 10-ton behemoth is supported through metal I-beams within the basement. “Each brick is lower through hand,” Roberts says, scrupulously eyeing the flames within. “The oven is so well-insulated. It’s a showpiece.” (The West Lebanon oven is painted to resemble a tomato and is supported through concrete.) There’s no thermostat and no fuel –– those young children are fueled purely through wooden (kiln-dried at $400 a wire), requiring the pizzaioli to be informed them in and out. “The rationale we purchase kiln-dried is as a result of it’s tremendous dried and burns cleanly,” Roberts provides. “When it is going within the oven, it lighting fixtures immediately. This oven will keep scorching for 3 days.” Why are the ovens so a very powerful to Lui Lui’s setting? “If we had been going to do pizza, we would have liked to do it as just about unique as lets, and display those who we supposed industry,” Roberts explains. “We weren’t going to have an oven within the again kitchen the place no person may just see. We would have liked exhibition cooking to turn other people the brand new elements that we get ready and the way blank the entirety is. We’re sticklers for high quality and cleanliness, and we’ve got not anything to cover.”

Pass-training is necessary to Lui Lui, and Roberts says staff will teach so long as wanted in a space. Managers at every retailer “are skilled no less than every week in each and every unmarried house, in order that each and every supervisor can assist out if wanted,” he provides. In all, Lui Lui employs 150.

And, it takes a small military to drag off Lui Lui’s emphasis on brand new meals. Right here, bread is constructed from scratch, as are soups, salad dressings, croutons and sauces. After all, dough is made in-house day by day, as are decadent truffles akin to tiramisu, cannoli and Sicilian chocolate mousse. Why no longer outsource the only menu element maximum eating places do? “The standard and, once more, being on a strip with most of these chain eating places, we’ve were given to tell apart ourselves,” Roberts says. “Within the 14 years we’ve been open, there were over 15 new eating places that experience come into the realm. And we’ve nonetheless survived. … We really feel like we owe it to our consumers to provide them the finest that we will be able to –– up to we will be able to make right here, in dwelling.”

They use brand new pasta –– akin to ravioli, fettuccine and linguini –– sourced from an organization in Boston in addition to some dried sorts imported from Italy. In reality, Roberts and his staff move a step additional in terms of sourcing merchandise –– they in truth consult with the vegetation the place their merchandise are made. “We construct relationships,” Roberts says. “We’re no longer available in the market to search out the bottom worth, regardless of who we purchase from.”

That willing consideration to element is paying off. They’ve received accolades on the state and native degree –– together with “Best possible of” awards for the eating places’ Caesar salad and childrens’ menu –– on account of their high quality regulate.

Except the meals is Lui Lui’s drink menu. Certain, there’s beer and wine, however a complete bar is to be had “so we will be able to cater to everybody,” Roberts says. “If any person does no longer need a beer or a tumbler of wine, there’s a menu of beverages that they may be able to form of create with all the ones other spirits and add-ons. It’s so much like making pizza. The glass is a canvas for no matter you’ll get a hold of. We do bellinis with brand new peach puree. (We use) fresh-squeezed juices and … marinate end result in rum and vodka.”

Glad Hour (from 2 to six p.m. day by day) is a huge price tag add-on ––the corporate sells greater than 1,000 $2 margaritas every week.

Common dishes come with the rooster and proscuitto marsala ($12.99), the Caesar Pizza ($10.99 –– bought incessantly as an appetizer), the best-selling Marcherita Pizza ($10.99/ $18.99) and the beautiful seafood cioppino (shrimp, lobster, clams and mussels in a quite highly spiced seafood broth served with brand new linguine for $21.50).

Within the final 12 months, an under-$10 menu was once added that helped the corporate’s test moderate upward push. “We reduced costs, and other people perceived to order extra meals,” Roberts says.

Even if Lui Lui makes use of high-end elements, Roberts says they may be able to stay meals prices down through the usage of a pc tool program that ties in meals prices with their point-of-sale machine, a big expense that they first of all held off buying. “That’s how we’re in a position to care for our high quality, however we had been additionally in a position to extend parts as a result of we’re saving cash at the different finish,” he provides. “We’re in a position to trace it, the place earlier than, we had been simply throwing cash away.”

Nonetheless, Roberts could also be no longer afraid to put money into advertising. He’s performed radio, tv and unsolicited mail, however says that fishbowl e mail advertising (consumers fi ll out a kind and drop it right into a fish bowl) and having his managers ship menus to native companies are value efficient and environment friendly. “The purchasers can put a face to it,” he says. “It’s no longer simply one thing arriving of their mailbox.”

Tv was once particularly efficient after the Nashua location suffered a crippling blow following a Christmas Day pipe burst that closed the shop for a number of months (see sidebar on web page 77).

For many who have ordered a big carryout order, “We’ll name again and ask how the entirety was once,” Roberts provides. “We inspire managers to consult with tables when other people are available in, and (inspire them to) take a look at issues they’ve by no means had earlier than.” That’s a degree of personalization that still units Lui Lui except for its big-box chains.

With a gentle industry already within the Manchester area, may just extra Lui Lui places spring up? Roberts says they’ve been approached to franchise, however “our feeling was once ‘are we going to lose one of the crucial regulate?’ ” he says. They hope to develop domestically whilst selling from inside. Even if there are not any fast plans for long term places, Roberts says they’ll strike when the proper location hits in the proper marketplace. For now, being a technicolor impartial in a sea of bland chains feels good. ?

Ensured through Insurance coverage

Remaining Christmas, proprietor Eric Roberts discovered the Lui Lui Nashua location awash in water after a sprinkler pipe iced up and burst. 4 to 5 inches of water ran down the stairs and out the entrance door, and a part of the ceiling had collapsed. Each the sprinkler and the lights methods had been ruined.

Inside two hours, the corporate’s insurance coverage corporate despatched a staff to start out cleansing up the mess. The next day to come, contractors had been at the scene.

“If ever there was once an advert for having the proper insurance policy, it’s us,” Roberts says. “For most of these industry house owners who suppose that premiums are excessive, we wouldn’t have been in a position to re-open if we didn’t heed the recommendation of our insurance coverage agent.

“It took two-and-a-half months to position the eating place again in combination higher than it was once to start with.”

Throughout that point, they paid all in their staff and executives and the insurance coverage corporate helped them arrange a brief workplace –– particularly necessary for fielding telephone calls from consumers who had purchased vacation reward playing cards and believed that the eating place had close down.

With insurance coverage, they marketed that they’d be re-open and had been in a position to carry issues of outrage as much as present code requirements. “Any industry proprietor available in the market, you’ve were given to have it,” Roberts advises. “We didn’t plan in this. In our wildest desires, we by no means will have imagined one thing of this magnitude.”

Mandy Wolf Detwiler is managing editor of PIZZA TODAY.