Jim Frye is founding father of the Italian Oven Café, a spin-off of kinds from his unique Italian Oven idea. The Italian Oven went public within the Nineteen Nineties, however floundered shortly thereafter. Now Frye is resurrecting the idea in an abbreviated kind, following the lead of ideas like Starbucks and Panera Bread. At present, there are two Italian Oven Café shops in operation: one in Pittsburgh and one in West Palm Seashore, Florida, the place the corporate is newly based mostly.
PT: What served as inspiration for bringing again and tweaking the Italian Oven idea?
JF: Again in 2001, I used to be watching with nice curiosity what Starbucks and Panera Bread had been doing. They had been providing an reasonably priced different to informal eating that was somewhat nicer than quick meals and somewhat extra informal than full-service eating. I had been plotting my comeback with The Italian Oven and began fleshing out the concept of turning The Italian Oven restaurant into a quick informal restaurant.
PT: What particularly appealed to you when it comes to providing a smaller restaurant in this kind of enterprise mannequin?
JF: I may see the place we may construct a smaller retailer that was less expensive to construct and cheaper to run when it comes to having no desk service and having a smaller employees. However we’ve nonetheless saved a wood-fired oven because the centerpiece of the menu.
PT: What are your progress plans?
JF: The thought was to create a model that we may tackle the highway and develop and promote franchises. We’ve had in extra of 100 franchise inquiries since we opened our retailer in West Palm Seashore. A few of these are simply folks coming in to kick the tires, however in all probability 10-15 p.c of these have a really severe curiosity in constructing an Italian Oven Café someplace. That’s one of many causes we selected West Palm Seashore for this prototype retailer — folks go to right here from everywhere in the world, significantly in the course of the peak season.
PT: Velocity of service is essential in this kind of idea. How are you doing in that regard to this point?
JF: Inside seven to 9 minutes, folks get their meals. That’s the common transaction time, together with the period of time it takes them to put their order. A meals runner brings the meals out to them on the desk. We put meal in entrance of them in a short time, and we use nicer napkins and dinnerware and nicer supplies. Since there is no such thing as a desk service, there’s no tipping. Folks admire it an amazing deal. We get nice frequency from our key constituents.
PT: What’s your common visitor test?
JF: It’s just a bit over $10.
