That First Kiss

“Yesterday is History, Tomorrow a Mystery, Today is a Gift, That’s why it's called the Present" -- Alice Morse Earle

Remember that first kiss, or opening that letter you received letting you know that you got admitted into the college of your dreams, or the feeling you got when you received that job offer that you really wanted? Each of those instances was a moment of bliss.

In that kiss, in that letter, in that phone call, one experiences pure joy. In that moment you don’t think about the heartache and the pain of getting to that point. And you certainly don’t think about the future and the new challenges that will arise. That moment is one of those rare instances where both the heart and the mind just want to sulk it in and enjoy.

Tonight is that moment for me and for us at Zaffron! If you’ve been following this blog you’ll remember that this journey began over a year ago, and in many instances much earlier, by three friends believing in a simple idea that kabobs and Middle Eastern food should be consumed more often. Since that start there have been many ups and downs …and some more downs. During this period I’ve had many sleepless nights and the white strands of hair on my head have grown exponentially :)

However, in this moment that roller coaster ride seems like a distant memory because earlier today we received our CO. Now for those in the know they’ll get what a CO means, as for the rest of us (including the Amir from 6 weeks ago), CO stands for Certificate of Occupancy – meaning we can officially open for business!!!

So now that the powers that be have signed off and that barricade wall covering our store has literally and symbolically come crashing down, our doors are open for business – although not fully, just yet. Even though we’ve dedicated a significant amount of time and energy towards training our staff, we want to ease into our opening to ensure customers have a pleasant experience. So starting tomorrow and for the next several days we’ll be open for limited hours.

I have no doubt that once we’re open for business new challenges will surely arise and I’ll continue to moan and complain in future blogs. However, in this moment the problems of tomorrow can wait because now is about enjoying the moment.

-Amir

The Domino Effect

"I think I can. I think I can. I think I can. I know I can." -- Little Engine That Could

Here’s a typical exchange I have with friends, particularly with those that I haven’t seen in a while:

Friend: “So Amir, how’s the restaurant coming along?”
Me: “It’s coming along well, we hit some small snags in the process, but we’ll be open soon – I’ll definitely keep you posted.”
Friend: “Great, can’t wait for the opening – I’m excited to come check it out, just let me know when!”
Me: “Thanks – you’re awesome!”

However, this past Friday I was in the midst of having one of these normal conversations, when an acquaintance bursts out and says, “Dude, I’ve given up on your restaurant opening…it’s taking you forever.”

At that moment I bit my tongue and tried my best to withhold all the pent up frustration I’ve been harboring dealing with the construction process. Instead, I simply asked him, “Buddy, have you ever built or constructed anything?” Now, I’m not talking about building a crazy financial model in Excel or a killer PowerPoint presentation, but rather something physical like a house, a store, or a product? Naturally, he gave me the blank stare and replied, “No, but how hard could it be?”

Now, he does have a point… none of the stuff I’m currently working on is hard. Rather, it’s a game of patience, persistence, and being resourceful.

We executed the lease for our location 13 weeks ago (Blog) and at that time I thought we’d be open for business in 10-12 weeks. However, due to my naiveté I didn’t realize the number of variables at play in constructing a restaurant. In hindsight, building a store is like the dominos game – where you need each piece to fall in place before you can move onto the next piece.

In our case, there were a number of hiccups. For instance, the local city regulators (affectionately known as L&I here in Philadelphia), took 8 weeks to issue our construction permits since the landlord delayed in producing needed documents. Then, you have the local gas company who took 3 weeks to return my phone call to setup our gas account. Lastly, you can’t have any of your final inspections, be it with the Board of Health, building inspector, the landlord, or the fire department, until everything else is in order.

In talking to my mentors, I guess I shouldn’t be so surprised the construction process has taken a few weeks longer than anticipated… it’s part of the territory. However, through this experience I’ve learned a tremendous amount which I’m sure is only going to make us even more efficient for the next go around. In the meantime I can continue to say with confidence that we will be open soon… just don’t hold me to a specific date :)

-Amir

Nicholas’s Travels

"The World is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page." --St. Augustine

Hey everyone. My name is Nicholas Pike. I couldn’t be more excited to be working with the Zaffron team. The concept is really coming together, and we should be open very soon! I wanted to write a quick post to introduce myself and tell you guys a bit about my recent trip to the Middle East.

Over the holidays, I was able to spend some time in the Middle East to further explore the influences and intricacies of the regional cuisine. While I consider myself an adventurous eater and have eaten at more middle eastern restaurants in the US, Europe, Asia, and Africa than I can count, I have never been to the source. A couple of weeks before the opening of Zaffron seemed like the perfect time to check it out. There were certainly some highlights, including i) seeing a shwarma bigger than the man standing next to it, ii) the tremendous variety of hummus concocted by various chefs in Turkey, Jordan, Israel, and Syria and iii) breads of every shape and size you can imagine. For a big fan of this cuisine, seeing the varieties and quality of this food in its natural habitat was spectacular.

The biggest benefit though was seeing how similar the food was across national, cultural, and ethnic borders. The foods eaten by the bedoiun near the Saudi border were the same as those eaten by the cosmopolitan residents of Amman, the Christian and Arab communities in Damascus, Palestinians in Ramallah, pilgrims in Bethlehem, and recent immigrants to the Jewish quarter of the old city of Jerusalem. Despite the stark and ongoing challenges faced in this part of the world, in one of the most basic of human actions (eating), disparate peoples were remarkably similar.

While I have no illusions about the challenges facing the Middle East or the role that Zaffron can play in promoting peace in this part of the world, Zaffron’s motto of “changing the world one kabob at a time” made me think that human similarities so often outweigh our differences. The influences that we have drawn on to create the Zaffron menu have stood the test of time in the Middle East, and the food is enjoyed by all (across class, gender, ethnic, and religious lines). While many other regions have already seen the benefits and appeal of Middle Eastern food, it is my great hope that Zaffron helps bring this enjoyment to the United States.

Our menu draws on all of the influences that I experienced in the Middle East, but, in my opinion, Zaffron’s food is fresher and higher quality. You’ll see for yourselves soon. I can’t wait for you to give our menu a try!

-Nick

Putting Ourselves Out There

“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world.” -- Bob Geldof

Last month I had the pleasure of presenting at the 2^nd annual American Muslim Consumer Conference. It was an outstanding event. The conference highlighted the growing buying power of the American Muslim Consumer and it also provided a forum for entrepreneurs to showcase creative new business ideas.

Fortunately, Zaffron was selected as one of the featured companies. It was an amazing opportunity to present in front of several hundred attendees as well as distinguished panelists, including Tariq Farid (CEO and Founder of Edible Arrangements) and Adnan Durrani. I have to admit it was gut-wrenching speaking in front of the audience, but to some extent I was prepared for that. What was more terrifying and something that I wasn’t fully prepared for was the onslaught of questions that came from the panelists grilling me in the ins and outs of our business plan.

Anyways, I’ll stop writing and instead let you guys watch the clip. Special thanks to Artina for taking this video…its tough holding your handheld camera in the air for a while! Next time we’ll be sure to bring a tripod :)

Zaffron Video: http://www.youtube.com/zaffronusa

-Amir

A Dream Deferred

“There is no telling how many miles you will have to run while chasing a dream.” --Anonymous

Hey folks – first off, sorry it’s been so long since we’ve published a post. There has been a lot going on personally and professionally but we promise to do a better job of keeping you guys in the loop moving forward.

So August, 13^th was my last day in Boston. That’s right, as planned I left my old firm to move down to Philadelphia to officially immerse myself in this next phase of the journey. For those keeping track the plan was to leave Advent and then hopefully in a couple of months be up and running with our first store on Temple University’s campus… well that was the plan. Unfortunately, as I’ve come to learn the hard way, seldom do things go according to plan :)

A bit of history, on June 8^th we signed the lease for an awesome retail spot on Temple’s campus. Signing that 50-page legal agreement that I had spent countless hours reviewing was exhilarating and terrifying. We were prepared to take the next step. Unfortunately as it turns out, the landlord had different plans. As you may remember from the last post, the spot is an existing restaurant and we were assured delivery of the space within 30 days. A month passed and we were told that the eviction process was taking more time than expected but that we would get the space very soon. We waited patiently but a month later the landlord finally conceded that they weren’t going to give us the space. It turns out the tenant had cured their lease by paying up the money they owed and our lease was void.

I was devastated to say the least. I received this news one week before I was leaving Advent to move down to Philly full-time. Imagine the worst setback you’ve ever faced… you probably cried… well that’s how I felt. I’m a man so it’s hard to confess in a public forum that I cried, but I’ll admit there were a few tears running down my cheeks after that phone call. When you’re starting a business all you have is your hope, dreams and aspirations. Every time I closed my eyes I dreamed of our first store at that space… I imagined being the next big thing on Temple’s campus and Saffron Grill becoming the go-to spot for students. In a heartbeat the dream vanished.

I learned a lot from this experience. For one, I realized that you can’t trust everyone in the real estate business. I should have realized that something was off when the landlord never sent me a countersigned copy of the lease document nor cashed in my security deposit! I also learned that you can’t put all your eggs in one basket. As soon as we had signed this lease, we stopped searching for other properties assuming everything would work out just fine. This set our timeline back a few months as we had to start from scratch… again.

Nevertheless, I knew I had to continue to push forward and get over this hurdle. I held onto my faith that everything happens for a reason and channeled all my energy towards finding a new space. Time was of the essence now that I was leaving the Advent payroll. My broker and I have since been on the prowl and soon enough we’re going to make something happen!

-Amir

A diamond in the rough

“Patience is waiting. Not passively waiting. That is laziness. But to keep going when the going is hard and slow - that is patience.” -- Anonymous

In my last post I mentioned we were very close to signing a lease… if only it were as easy as putting a signature on a piece of paper. We found a spot on Temple University’s campus that we are extremely excited about. We never thought of being in North Philadelphia given how little we knew about the area, but this location is in the heart of campus and is surrounded by tons of people. There is a movie theater in the building as well as a Qdoba Mexican Grill and a pizza shop. Right next door is a huge dormitory and there is another one in construction across the street. Even better, Temple is planning to build a full-blown gym on the second floor of the building. All the landmarks gave us a good feeling but we were most comforted by the space after we got estimated traffic counts in the neighboring restaurants. Thanks to our friends, Saara Hafeez, Sakina Zaidi, and Aminah Ali we were able to gauge how many people would come to eat at this location on various days. The numbers were astounding and beat our counts at any of the other locations we had evaluated.

Once we were ready to reach an agreement we had to engage a lawyer to negotiate the nuts and bolts of the lease. It is amazing how much there is to learn about the legal process and jargon. Luckily Amir had experience working with lawyers and legal contracts in his job, so he took the rein on this work stream. Nonetheless it required painstaking attention to detail and hours of phone calls with our counsel before we finally had a document we were all comfortable with. And so it happened… on June 8^th while I was thousands of miles away traveling through Hyderabad, India we signed a lease. Little did we know how much time it would take for us to actually get the space…

One of the best things about this space is that it is a running restaurant, which means the cost of us taking it over will be much less than building up a restaurant from a clean shell. Unfortunately this has also led to our process getting delayed more than we had expected. We were told by the landlord that they would deliver the space within 30 days as they had a strong case for evicting the current tenant (who is way behind on rent). It seems however, that the tenant wanted to put up more of a fight and now we are just waiting for them to duke it out. We are now supposed to get the space in 3 weeks time (which coincidentally is when we officially make the move from Boston to Philadelphia) so we are just hoping and praying that this works out as promised. If not, we’ll have to start thinking about plan B but in this business what else is new? :)

-Artina

The Birth of a Dream

“Every time a man puts a new idea across he finds ten men who thought of it before he did - but they only thought of it.” --Anon

It was the Fall Semester of my junior year in college. We had come back from the summer and I noticed there was something new and exciting about the campus vibe near my dorm. Right next to my apartment a Qdoba Mexican restaurant opened. I was completely enamored by this place. I was enthralled by the simplicity of its menu and the ability to create a myriad of options using the same ingredients but combining them in different ways. Qdoba was an instant hit on-campus. There were long lines snaking around every time I went – which was very often.

The rest of my junior year was super busy, in particular during the start of the spring semester gearing up for landing a summer internship. For those that don’t know much about the Wharton culture, internship season is a stressful experience and scoring a prized offer is in many ways a crowning achievement. By that measure I was fortunate enough to ultimately land a gig at Morgan Stanley. For me, Investment Banking was a complete thud. The only silver lining from that experience was meeting Brendan Petri, known as the Petri Dish. Petri was a character, from playing the air guitar a la Jack Black in School of Rock, to serenading me with ridiculous songs; the Petri Dish made the summer a lot of fun.

That summer while Petri and I banked like champions we would order dinner and eat together. Brendan would order something different every night meanwhile I would crush the Kabobs. It got to the point that a couple of weeks into our internship Brendan nicknamed me ‘Amir Kabob’ which quickly caught on and became my nickname in the office. One evening mid-way through our internship we were anxiously surfing seamless web to figure out where to order from for tonight’s dinner. After a couple minutes of surfing, Brendan threw his hands in defeat and turned to me and said “Amir Kabob, order me what you normally get yourself’. That night Brendan and I both ate Lamb Kabob platters with a bowl of hummus some bhaba ganoush and pita bread. After the meal, Brendan turned to me and said, “Amir Kabob, this food is awesome how come I haven’t eaten this stuff before?” At that point, I thought to myself, how come Brendan hasn’t eaten this kind of food before? He’s clearly a worldly and adventuresome guy, yet he’s never enjoyed Kabobs, how could that be? The more I thought about it the more I realized most Middle Eastern restaurants tend to be hole-in-the-wall shops and very ‘ethnic’ in nature, and nicer places tend to be too expensive for regular dining. Thus, it made sense why even though Middle Eastern food is pretty awesome, it’s not as widely known and consumed.

I thought to myself someone should bring Middle Eastern style food in the same format that Qdoba was serving Mexican food. To me the concept made a lot of sense since Middle Eastern foods can be prepared in a similar assembly line process and you can create a lot of different food combinations with a limited number of ingredients. Not to mention, if done right Middle Eastern food is healthier than Mexican foods since Kabobs are grilled and nothing is fried. To me, the idea had merit and no one was doing it the way I had envisioned it…

Thus, it was then and there during the summer of 2005 that the idea was born, it just took a little while and some convincing along the way to pursue it….

-Amir

Laying the foundation

“Someone's sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.” --Warren Buffett

It’s been a while since we’ve blogged but that doesn’t mean we haven’t been busy! In fact a lot has happened that we will update you on soon, starting with us commissioning an architect to help build out our store’s interior design.

Creating an identity is no easy task… especially for a kabob restaurant. And our goal is not just to sell kabobs but to build a brand that stands for something more. We want people to be inspired when they eat at Saffron Grill. Kabobs come from all over the world and have many names, shapes, and forms. You’ve probably heard of Greek souvlaki but did you know about Mexican banderillas? The point is we want people to walk into Saffron Grill and realize they are experiencing an international cuisine. So our theme is about bringing cultures together and unifying people through kabobs.

But how do you express that in your store layout and design? That’s the project we’ve been working on over the last few weeks. First we met with our architect to discuss the process and looked through a variety of random images that could give us some inspiration. After agreeing on some ideas we came up with an abstract vision for the theme. Our architect asked us to then go out into actual restaurants and take photos of all the elements… think walls, ceilings, lights, tables, chairs, menu boards, ordering stations, the works! This was a lot more awkward than you’d think but we got some great shots. Then the three of us walked through all of the pictures to come up with a consistent viewpoint on what we liked and didn’t like. Wood or metal? Paint or brick? Red or Purple? I personally enjoyed this exercise a lot although I bet Amir never imagined he would be contemplating these questions :) Nevertheless, it was a great discussion and we all came out on the same page which is really important.

We then presented the images and our opinions to our architect to get his feedback and lock down specific materials, colors, and styles. For the most part he loved our ideas and guided us towards a single design. There was a piece we disagreed on with regards to using geometric shapes (like the one you see here) to accentuate the idea of unity and bringing cultures together. Our architect said we would run the risk of evoking the wrong ideas (whether it was religious, spiritual, or too Mediterranean/Eastern in nature). However, we felt strongly that there is a way of incorporating this type of design subtly into the rest of the décor elements that could be tasteful and would add much more depth and richness to our theme. What do you think? Would love to hear what words come to mind when you see these types of images, and if it seems too foreign or unwelcoming?

At this point we are waiting for our architect to come back with some initial sketches of how this will all pan out. Look forward to sharing the drawings with you all soon!

-Artina

Introducing Chief Kabob Officer...

“You must lose a fly to catch a trout.” -- George Herbert

So this is my first post on this wonderful blog that Artina has started to chronicle our journey to bring you our new restaurant concept. At first, I liked the idea of Artina updating this blog and this being her ‘baby’ but after prodding from a few friends (or just one…thanks Raju) I realized that this a great way for me to reflect on all the thoughts, feelings and emotions that I’ve been going through as part of my decision to start a restaurant . Not to mention, Raju brought up the brilliant point that if I end up applying to business school down the road this thread would make for wonderful essay content :)

Before I pour my heart…let me give you the quick download on who I am and where I come from…trust me I won’t get into existential expose on the purpose of my being – frankly I’m not that deep (I went to Wharton for college…so that says enough). And in full transparency, I looked up the word ‘existential’ on dictionary.com before inserting it in this post just to make sure I wasn’t using the word incorrectly – which I have a God-given gift for doing. Also, for those of you who know me, I hope you realize that I’m trying really hard to buck the trend of writing everything in bullet form and always having 3-reasons to back-up my points-of-view, even if I only have 1 real reason; you can thank my prior employer, McKinsey & Co., for training me in such eloquent prose.

I grew up in a small town outside of Pittsburgh, PA called Latrobe. It’s the home town of golfing legend, Arnold Palmer, and its where Rolling Rocks Beer got its start… who knows perhaps someday Latrobe will also be referred as the birthplace of the messiah of the Kabob… don’t hold your breath though :) Anyways, when I was 8 my family moved from Latrobe to South Asia (Karachi, Pakistan) and then to the Middle East (Dubai, UAE), before we moved back to the US in 1998, this time to New Jersey – unclear if that was an upgrade or downgrade from Latrobe. Today, I work in the world of Private Equity at a pretty awesome firm in Boston called Advent International (checkout my bio for some shameless self-promotion: http://www.adventinternational.com/PeopleData/Pages/AmirMemon_English.aspx)

So… I’m 26 now and entering a cross-road in my life. Please don’t read too much into that prior statement. I’m by no means claiming to be going through some cathartic experience in which all of a sudden I now realize the true essence of life. Rather, what I’m trying to say and I imagine many of you reading this post can similarly appreciate; I’m grappling with the age-old conundrum of following the well-trodden path vs. blazing your own trail. The questions and feelings that one goes through in making this kind of decision, regardless of the time, place, and circumstances have to be the same. On the one hand, the well-trodden path offers comfort, security, and allows you to visualize the destination ahead, even if that destination is miles away and you know it won’t always be smooth sailing. Meanwhile, blazing your path is just that – its taking a step back and realizing holy cow you have no idea what the hell you are doing, where you’re going, and where you’ll end up. At the end of the day all you have to hang your hat on is your trust in God, and that you’re going to do whatever it takes to figure things out…

-Amir

To be or not to be..

“We know what happens to people who stay in the middle of the road. They get run over.” -- Aneurin Bevan

Thanks to everyone who took the survey last week! We got some great feedback from you all and also collected 210 completed responses from the United Sample panel. In analyzing the results we were excited to find that the data validated our hypotheses for the most part. Over 80% of our sample said they enjoyed eating kabobs but 75% of that group said they only eat it out sometimes or rarely. The number one reason these people don’t eat kabobs more often is because they don’t know of any good restaurants nearby. Of the people who initially said they don’t enjoy eating kabobs or hadn’t tried it before, over half said it was because they don’t know what it is, don’t know where to get it, or had a bad experience in the past. All of these data points give us greater confidence that there is a definite need for a more mainstream and easily accessible fast-casual kabob restaurant. Enter Saffron Grill! :)

We also received some very constructive feedback on the product concept and sample menu. Turns out our “simple 5-step process” comes across a lot more complex than we thought. Although nearly 90% of the people said it seemed very simple and straightforward or easy to understand the menu, the comments highlighted some key questions for us. One person said, “There is so much information and I don’t know what a lot of the food on the menu is” and another, “Too many choices, need to give sample combinations.” This sprung up a debate amongst our team on the pros and cons of a “do-it-yourself, assembly-line-style” menu versus a more traditional menu with preset items to choose from. Our initial plan was to empower consumers to personalize their order 100% so they could engage with the food and mix and match the different options to their liking. This was inspired by the Chipotles and Qdobas of the world, and lends itself well to a successful scalable model. But clearly kabobs are not as easily understood by Americans as burritos or tacos so we run the risk of confusing people and potentially leading them to have a bad experience if they don’t use the “right” combination of ingredients for their order. Even a friend of ours who is of Pakistani background and is very familiar with this type of cuisine corroborated this point of view. Thanks Khalid :) What are your thoughts on this? Feel free to add your comments on this post!

Overall the survey results were extremely helpful and well-worth the time and investment. We hope to do more market research as we go along and look forward to sharing more insights with you. For now, we know we have a lot more work to do on developing the product and menu further, and need to make some tough decisions on how we want to position Saffron Grill. That’s where a strong chef comes in. Stay tuned in the coming weeks to learn more about our approach to finding the perfect chef!

-Artina

Doing our homework, part 2

All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Of course doing your due diligence isn’t all fun and games. In addition to eating at various kabob restaurants, we have been working on drafting our own consumer survey to gather primary data on our target market and their eating habits. We constructed a series of questions that will hopefully provide us with key insights along the way. We are also using this as a gauge to validate our concept and hear what consumers think about the idea, the menu, the logo, the tagline, and other specifics. Our goal is to analyze the responses to make strong data-driven decisions as opposed to doing things on a whim or gut feeling. So how exactly are we collecting this data?

Well, it turns out the world of online consumer research is way more complicated than the basic Survey Monkey surveys we all created in college. We first looked into all the different vendors that paid a panel of consumers to take online surveys for market research purposes. We compared Market Tools, United Sample, The Sample Network, Affordable Samples, and Panel Speak. Their quotes ran from $1800 to $4700 to get 200 completed responses from people who fit the demographic and behavioral criteria we specified. We were initially shocked at the wide range and dug a bit deeper into the specific charges. It turned out that 50% of the costs came from programming the questions into a survey tool. Some companies have their own ‘proprietary technologies’ whereas others use vendors like Survey Gizmo, Zoomerang, QuestionPro, and even Survey Monkey. After evaluating the various licenses offered by these companies we realized that the market research vendors were charging a significant premium for the labor costs. So we decided to be scrappy… how hard could it be to program 50 questions into an online tool anyways?

Pretty hard. It took over 20 hours to figure out the QuestionPro system and get the sequence right. Since we wanted to use some advanced features like skip logic and branching it required several attempts to ensure we were asking the right questions to the right people. But in the end it was well worth it because I saved our team a couple hundred dollars and learned a skill that can be leveraged in the future, as we’ll likely want to do more consumer surveys as we launch. Now that the survey is programmed in QuestionPro, we are going to set it live in a few days and collect responses through United Sample. I look forward to sharing the results and insights with you all soon. In the meantime feel free to take the survey yourself and tell us what you really think! We’d really appreciate it and you’ll get a sneak peek into our menu and logo drafts. Just go to http://saffrongrill.questionpro.com – thanks!

-Artina

Doing our homework, part 1

"A small leak can sink a great ship." – Benjamin Franklin

Over the past few months we have been researching the restaurant industry to educate ourselves about the space and make note of macro trends. We’ve read a lot of books, articles, case studies, and business plans. We’ve interviewed numerous industry experts, restaurant owners, chefs, and even our friends. It’s amazing how much there is to absorb! But research comes in many shapes and forms and by far the best part of doing our homework has been trying out various restaurants that offer kabobs. While we’d like to think our concept is pretty unique, the truth is there are lots of similar restaurants we can learn from.

One such example is a fast-causal Mediterranean startup in New York that my friend Sophia told me about. Sophia is an Equity Research Analyst at Barclay’s Capital covering the restaurant space (by day), and a food connoisseur/critic (by night). She always knows about the best restaurants in the city and writes about them in her blog: http://restomanifesto.com. When we first heard about this startup, we were a bit disappointed that there was a restaurant that seemed so close in style and feel to our idea. But a closer look revealed that there was no mention of ‘kabob’ anywhere on their menu. While they had a similar ‘do-it-yourself’ approach, we were relieved to know their positioning was very different than what we envisioned for Saffron Grill. Plus if you look at the fast-casual Mexican restaurant space, there are several chains that are all very similar, yet successful in their own right (think Chipotle, Qdoba, Baja Fresh, Boloco, etc).

In any case, the last time I was in NY I knew I had to check this restaurant out for myself. Luckily I had my two awesome colleagues, Sara and Evan, to join me in conducting firsthand research! We all enjoyed the experience and it was amazing how similar to Chipotle it felt – from the rustic-modern décor to the black polo shirt uniforms. One thing I really liked was that their menu board was a digital screen rather than a static poster board. Sara pointed out (from her past experience working at corporate Chik-fil-A) that this was likely also more cost-effective in the long term because printing traditional signage is a lot more expensive than you would think. I also learned that the containers you serve your food in are just as important as the taste of the food itself – well, almost. I personally felt the food tasted okay but the containers made it seem even less enjoyable because they weren’t big enough to stir things around the way I like. While these are all seemingly trivial points, it was interesting to assess the restaurant from a critical standpoint and pay attention to the details that stand out to different consumers. After all, we will have to make each of these decisions at some point down the road, and the sum of all their parts will make a difference to our success.

-Artina

Everything happens for a reason

No trumpets sound when the important decisions of our life are made. Destiny is made known silently. -- Agnes DeMille

We heard back from the broker for the Comcast Center last week. He said he was very interested in our concept and wanted to get on the phone to learn more. We were a bit nervous because the broker would be joined by the director of the food court who has a reputation for being a bulldog. Luckily our senior advisor, a friend’s father who has significant restaurant experience and is investing in our startup, was able to join us on the call. Now I normally don’t get anxious about calls with my clients at Google, but selling your own idea is a whole other story. In any case, he grilled us but we were able to impress the director and he asked us to move forward with creating a ‘nickel package’ which is architectural lingo for a basic sketch of the construction to be done. The broker also mentioned that there were a few terms on the LOI that we would need to discuss further but that we were close to making a deal.

We were super excited about this outcome and began talking to general contractors and architectural firms to work on the drawings. After a few conversations we decided to move forward with one architect. But first we wanted to confirm with the Comcast Center broker that it made sense for us to invest significant dollars in these drawings since we last spoke. Little did we know that the broker had been aggressively pursuing a deal with another restaurant owner at the same time. We had heard rumors of this but didn’t put much weight in it because the space has been empty for nearly two years and it seemed more like a negotiation tactic on the broker’s part. To our dismay he told us that we should hold on the nickel package because they had signed an LOI with this other restaurant owner, and they have a two-week exclusive period to close the deal fully.

We tried to push back on this but it seems like they had a week’s edge on us and were able to get together their drawings and agree on terms more quickly. So all we can do is wait on this now and hope for the best. If for some reason their deal falls apart, we will have to be aggressive with moving forward. But it is more likely that they will close the deal so no we need to start back at square one. This felt like a setback for sure, but we believe that things happen for a reason and ultimately we will see the silver lining in the clouds. Perhaps the Comcast Center location wasn’t meant for us and this is a sign that we should keep looking elsewhere, which is just what we’ll do.

-Artina

Shifting our mindset

I can accept failure, but I can't accept not trying. --Michael Jordan

Up until now we have been so set on Philadelphia and finding a standalone site that we didn’t really consider other options. So we spent some time recently driving through various parts of central New Jersey to see if we should look there. After all, there are several Chipotles scattered throughout and they seem to do well. But we quickly realized that it would be much more challenging to bring a new concept with no brand image to a suburban town than an urban city. We can’t expect people to drive several miles to try our restaurant in Jersey, whereas we know people are always looking for new places to eat as they walk around in the city. So we felt more conviction in our plan to find a site in Philadelphia, but we also decided to branch out and explore some food court locations.

So one stormy day, we fought the rain and wind to visit the food court in the Liberty Place, a building in Center City comprised of shops, offices, residences, and a Westin hotel. It was surprisingly busy for a rainy Saturday afternoon and we were excited when we heard from the Chick Fila cashier they serve 400-500 customers on an average weekday. We also saw a food court space in the new Comcast Center building, which is the tallest high-rise in all of Center City. It houses hundreds of Comcast offices with some shops and restaurants on the lower level. We are very excited about this one in particular because the rent is lower than the Liberty Place and the surrounding restaurants would all serve our brand image well.

We submitted a bid for both of these spaces the other day and are waiting anxiously to hear back from the landlords. Hopefully this shift in our approach yields more positive results. Either way, we know we have a long way to go and we just have to keep trying :)

-Artina