It was a chilly, dreary day when Pizza At this time visited Nashua, New Hampshire, final spring. Outdoors, a torrential downpour made the streets slick and darkish. However inside two-story Lui Lui, the corporate’s outsized wood-burning oven took heart stage, making the restaurant as heat and alluring as proprietor Eric Roberts himself. Right here, consolation meals, smiling faces and ample drinks reign, and it gave the impression to be simply the ticket for the diners lining the comfy cubicles on such a 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primary Lui Lui opened in 1991 in West Lebanon, New Hampshire, in what gave the impression to be a doomed location an outdated mill the place a number of different restaurant makes an attempt had failed. Roberts, together with a few companions, noticed potential, particularly an absence of do-it-yourself Italian meals within the space. It wasn’t sufficient to easily provide pizza and pasta ambiance, they believed, was additionally key to success. Why pizza? “Everyone loves it,” Roberts says. “You develop up with it. And, it was enjoyable. I went to Italy, I toured round there and had some nice pizza. It was simply one thing that I knew and liked, and felt comfy with. “We employed over 100 folks to open that retailer, and it’s been a success ever since.”
5 years later, the second location opened in Nashua (a suburb of Manchester) on a busy freeway populated primarily by large chains. “There are only a few impartial eating places right here,” Roberts says. “It was one other threat, one other gamble. How have been we going to fare amongst all these large nationwide chains?”
Apparently properly. At this time, 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 constructed by mason Peter Moore in Vermont; the 10-foot, 10-ton behemoth is supported by metal I-beams within the basement. “Each brick is minimize by hand,” Roberts says, scrupulously eyeing the flames inside. “The oven is so well-insulated. It’s a showpiece.” (The West Lebanon oven is painted to resemble a tomato and is supported by concrete.) There’s no thermostat and no gasoline these infants are fueled purely by wooden (kiln-dried at $400 a wire), requiring the pizzaioli to study them inside and outside. “The rationale we purchase kiln-dried is as a result of it’s tremendous dried and burns cleanly,” Roberts provides. “When it goes within the oven, it lights instantly. This oven will keep sizzling for 3 days.” Why are the ovens so essential to Lui Lui’s ambiance? “If we have been going to do pizza, we wished to do it as near genuine as we might, and present those that we meant enterprise,” Roberts explains. “We weren’t going to have an oven within the again kitchen the place nobody might see. We wished exhibition cooking to point out folks the recent components that we put together and the way clear every thing is. We’re sticklers for high quality and cleanliness, and now we have nothing to cover.”
Cross-training is essential to Lui Lui, and Roberts says workers will prepare so long as wanted in an space. Managers at every retailer “are skilled no less than per week in each single space, so that each supervisor can assist out if wanted,” he provides. In all, Lui Lui employs 150.
And, it takes a small military to tug off Lui Lui’s emphasis on recent meals. Right here, bread is produced from scratch, as are soups, salad dressings, croutons and sauces. In fact, dough is made in-house every day, as are decadent desserts akin to tiramisu, cannoli and Sicilian chocolate mousse. Why not outsource the one menu part most eating places do? “The standard and, once more, being on a strip with all these chain eating places, we’ve bought to distinguish ourselves,” Roberts says. “Within the 14 years we’ve been open, there have been over 15 new eating places which have come into the realm. And we’ve nonetheless survived. … We really feel like we owe it to our clients to provide them one of the best that we will as a lot as we will make right here, in home.”
They use recent pasta akin to ravioli, fettuccine and linguini sourced from an organization in Boston in addition to some dried varieties imported from Italy. Actually, Roberts and his crew go a step additional in the case of sourcing merchandise they really go to the vegetation the place their merchandise are made. “We construct relationships,” Roberts says. “We’re not on the market to seek out the bottom value, regardless of who we purchase from.”
That eager consideration to element is paying off. They’ve received accolades on the state and native degree together with “Better of” awards for the eating places’ Caesar salad and childrens’ menu on account of their high quality management.
Other than the meals is Lui Lui’s drink menu. Positive, there’s beer and wine, however a full bar is obtainable “so we will cater to everybody,” Roberts says. “If somebody doesn’t desire a beer or a glass of wine, there’s a menu of drinks that they’ll form of create with all these totally different spirits and add-ons. It’s rather a lot like making pizza. The glass is a canvas for no matter you may give you. We do bellinis with recent peach puree. (We use) fresh-squeezed juices and … marinate fruits in rum and vodka.”
Glad Hour (from 2 to six p.m. every day) is a giant ticket add-on the corporate sells greater than 1,000 $2 margaritas per week.
Fashionable dishes embrace the hen and proscuitto marsala ($12.99), the Caesar Pizza ($10.99 bought usually as an appetizer), the best-selling Marcherita Pizza ($10.99/ $18.99) and the gorgeous seafood cioppino (shrimp, lobster, clams and mussels in a barely spicy seafood broth served with recent linguine for $21.50).
Within the final yr, an under-$10 menu was added that helped the corporate’s verify common rise. “We lowered costs, and other people appeared to order extra meals,” Roberts says.
Though Lui Lui makes use of high-end components, Roberts says they’re able to hold meals prices down by utilizing a pc software program program that ties in meals prices with their point-of-sale system, a serious expense that they initially held off buying. “That’s how we’re capable of keep our high quality, however we have been additionally capable of improve parts as a result of we’re saving cash on the opposite finish,” he provides. “We’re capable of observe it, the place earlier than, we have been simply throwing cash away.”
Nonetheless, Roberts can also be not afraid to spend cash on advertising. He’s finished radio, tv and junk mail, however says that fishbowl e-mail advertising (clients fi ll out a type and drop it right into a fish bowl) and having his managers ship menus to native companies are value efficient and environment friendly. “The shoppers can put a face to it,” he says. “It’s not simply one thing arriving of their mailbox.”
Tv was 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 individuals who have ordered a big carryout order, “We’ll name again and ask how every thing was,” Roberts provides. “We encourage managers to go to tables when folks are available in, and (encourage them to) attempt issues they’ve by no means had earlier than.” That’s a degree of personalization that additionally units Lui Lui aside from its big-box chains.
With a gentle enterprise already within the Manchester area, might extra Lui Lui places spring up? Roberts says they’ve been approached to franchise, however “our feeling was ‘are we going to lose a number of the management?’ ” he says. They hope to develop regionally whereas selling from inside. Though there are not any quick plans for future places, Roberts says they’ll strike when the best location hits in the best market. For now, being a technicolor impartial in a sea of bland chains feels good. ?
Ensured by Insurance coverage
Final Christmas, proprietor Eric Roberts discovered the Lui Lui Nashua location awash in water after a sprinkler pipe froze and burst. 4 to 5 inches of water ran down the steps and out the entrance door, and a part of the ceiling had collapsed. Each the sprinkler and the lighting programs have been ruined.
Inside two hours, the corporate’s insurance coverage firm despatched a crew to begin cleansing up the mess. The following day, contractors have been on the scene.
“If ever there was an advert for having the best insurance coverage protection, it’s us,” Roberts says. “For all these enterprise homeowners who assume that premiums are excessive, we’d not have been capable of re-open if we didn’t heed the recommendation of our insurance coverage agent.
“It took two-and-a-half months to place the restaurant again collectively higher than it was at first.”
Throughout that point, they paid all of their workers and managers and the insurance coverage firm helped them arrange a short lived workplace particularly essential for fielding cellphone calls from clients who had purchased vacation present playing cards and believed that the restaurant had shut down.
With insurance coverage, they marketed that they might be re-open and have been capable of carry factors of concern as much as present code requirements. “Any enterprise proprietor on the market, you’ve bought to have it,” Roberts advises. “We didn’t plan on this. In our wildest desires, we by no means might have imagined one thing of this magnitude.”
Mandy Wolf Detwiler is managing editor of PIZZA TODAY.
