Chicago chains set sights outside city in search of new customers

Nation's Restaurant News,  May 7, 2007  by Gregg Cebrzynski

• E-mail
• Print
• Link

CHICAGO -- In the never-ending search for new customers, many Chicago-based restaurant chains are broadening their reach beyond the city and expanding their brands into neighboring suburbs and across state lines.

Prompted by stiff competition in downtown Chicago and booming growth in outlying areas, companies large and small are seeking out new markets for both tried-and-true concepts and new ones.

Adobo Grill, which has two restaurants in Chicago and opened one in Indianapolis last year, next will expand into the western suburb of Lombard, Ill., where it has a restaurant under construction. Owner Paul LoDuca says the location is ideal.

"The market is underserved," he says. "There are not a lot of Mexican restaurants that can be considered competition."

Adobo Grill, which first opened in 2000 and added a second unit four years later in the Wicker Park neighborhood, has kept to the Chicago area as it has slowly grown. It opened the Indianapolis location to test how the concept would work outside Chicago, LoDuca says.

"We learned a lot," he says, particularly when it comes to the dining habits of Indianapolis residents.

"They're more price-sensitive, on liquor especially and on food a little bit," he says "We fine-tuned the concept. We ended up making the appetizers larger because they just wanted an appetizer for an entree."

LoDuca acknowledges that growth has been slow, but there's a reason for that.

"We always try to be real cautious," he says. "We're the tortoise. We're chugging along. We're trying to do one new restaurant a year, which hasn't been the past track record."

Restaurants-America, based in the Chicago suburb of Glenview, Ill., is moving ahead with "an aggressive expansion plan" for its Bar Louie concept and looks to open 14 or 15 more this year, says Amy Weisenburger, the company's director of marketing and public relations.

The first Bar Louie opened in 1991 in Chicago's River North. There are now 29 locations, including units in St. Louis, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, and Tampa, Fla., and Columbus, Ohio.

Bar Louie is a "casually cool" concept that attracts customers who are 21 to 55 years old. Lunch draws daytime workers and students, while dinner attracts families and happy-hour crowds. Young singles dominate the late-night hours.

It's this demographic mix that Restaurants-America looks for in potential markets, Weisenburger says.

"We tend to seek out areas that are up-and-coming, that don't really have a restaurant base that is something between casual dining and more upscale, fine dining," she says. "Bar Louie bridges the gap."

The restaurant serves a menu of appetizers, salads, sandwiches and entrees that range in price from $3.99 to $12.99.

The average Bar Louie is 7,000 square feet, but both store size and menu are adapted to the market, Weisenburger says.

"As we expand in the Midwest and Florida, the Bar Louies are a little larger and have a lot of different eating options," she says.

Restaurants-America also is expanding its Grillroom Chophouse & Winebar. It recently opened a unit in suburban Westmont, Ill., the third location for the concept. A fourth Grillroom is scheduled to open in late summer in Baton Rouge, La.

Harry Caray's Restaurant Group plans to open another Harry Caray's restaurant next year across the street from Wrigley Field.

"We've been looking up there for 10 years or so for the right opportunity," says Grant DePorter, president of the restaurant group.

The restaurant will occupy what is now Hi-Tops Tavern and will be a more casual version of the flagship restaurant in Chicago's River North neighborhood. The menu will emphasize more salads and pizza than the River North restaurant, DePorter says. Appropriately, the restaurant will open on the opening day of the 2008 Cub's season. DePorter expects it will do great business during the baseball season, but "our goal is to be busy the rest of the year as well," he says.

Before that location opens, another Harry Caray's and a new concept next door to it called Holy Mackerel! will open west of the city in a suburban Lombard shopping mall. Both are scheduled to open this August.

The Harry Caray's in Lombard will be bigger than the flagship restaurant, DePorter says, capable of holding more than 500 diners in its largest banquet room.

The casual-dining Holy Mackerel! will seat 125 people in the dining room and 28 in the bar. A private dining room called The Chart Room will seat 52.

The dining room will feature large-scale murals depicting vintage Chicago lakefront scenes. Only fresh seafood will be served, and menus will be printed daily to reflect whatever seafood is available that day, said director of marketing Beth G. Heller.

DePorter says opening Holy Mackerel! will allow Harry Caray's executive chef Paul Katz to "showcase his strengths."

"Seafood is his specialty," DePorter says. "He has been running seafood specials [at Harry Caray's] for years."