After a stroll down the Avenue, RG revs up with Fuel

Nation's Restaurant News,  May 17, 1999  by Milford Prewitt

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NEW YORK -- The Restaurant Group, a small but diversified dinner-house and quick-serve company based in Manhattan, has opened its newest vehicle, Fuel, a New York-style pizza concept in Charlotte, N.C.

Best known for its all-day, French-country restaurant, Avenue, located on Manhattan's Upper West Side, the Restaurant Group is a canopy of fine-dining, fast-food and theme restaurants orchestrated by a group of young chefs and entrepreneurs.

Along with Avenue, whose executive chef, Scott Campbell, is a heavily experienced veteran in New York's restaurant circles, the Restaurant Group also operates a fast-food concept called Brooklyn's Sliders 'n Dogs and a quick-serve pizza concept called Pop's Old-Style Pizza. All of the operations are in New York City except for the hotdog concept, which is in Brooklyn.

Last year the company generated about $8 million in sales. But with four new leases about to be signed, including two for Fuel units, volumes are bound to

grow in the coming years, Fuel soon will be a three-unit chain with the opening of a second unit in a Charlotte hotel sometime this summer. A third Fuel will debut in Rochester, N.Y., this week.

Fuel, which opened 14 months ago, serves up pizzas by the slice in units that are designed to look like gasoline stations from the 1930s through 1950s. The restaurant's name is emblazoned on the light domes atop old fuel pumps and marquee signage, which normally would carry such names as Exxon, Sohio or BP.

Although the first Fuel was remodeled from an abandoned gasoline station and was designed by up-and-coming designer Lincoln Clark, Jeremy Wladis, a principal of the Restaurant Group, said it may be hard to maintain such authenticity as the concept goes forward.

"The first Fuel was actually in a small gas station," he said. "The one we are opening in Rochester is in an old mill building, and the third one we're doing, which will be the second in Charlotte, will be in a hotel.

"It will have a separate entrance and space, but it will be decked out to look like an old gas station. It'll be funky and cool."

Why a slick group of restaurant operators from New York would head south to open a new concept is easy to explain, Wladis said.

"It's a rich opportunity," he said. "I had some family members move down there, and they were telling me that the city offers a great opportunity for restaurants, and they were right."

He said not only is customer traffic increasing with each month at Fuel, but also the restaurant recently won an award from Charlotte magazine for having the best pizza in town.

"What we're talking about is your classic 20-inch, thin-crust, New York-style pizza, and it's taking over the town," Wladis said, beaming. "No one, not Domino's, Papa John's, Pizza Hut, is in the slice business.

"We'll sell you a whole pie, but what makes us different is we do slices."

Fuel also serves nachos and Buffalo wings. Like California Pizza Kitchen, Fuel's pizzas feature gourmet toppings. One of the hot movers currently is the barbecue-chicken pizza.

Wladis said the reception by restaurant-goers in Charlotte has been so encouraging that he is trying to coax his partner and corporate chef in the Restaurant Group, Scott Campbell, to open a fine-dining restaurant in the city. But Campbell, one of the most accomplished chefs in New York, whose resume lists ports of call at Le Cirque, Vince and Eddy's, Sfuzzi, The Plaza Hotel, Windows On The World and Union Square, is skittish about the idea.

Campbell, who has earned high praise since opening Avenue on 85th Street at Amsterdam Avenue eight months ago, would become the "king of Charlotte," Wladis counters.

"I've been to the top five great restaurants in Charlotte and some of the secondary players, and there's a very limited market for fine dining down there," Wladis asserts. "I know we would kill.

"I know if Scott were to open a restaurant there, it would bring great value to Charlotte and probably become the best restaurant in town. My greatest desire right now is to talk him into it."

But the industry's tight labor market, exacerbated by an even tighter restaurant talent pool, has Campbell concerned.

"Not only is there a labor shortage, but there's a talent shortage down there," Campbell said. "When you have the lowest unemployment rate in the last 30 years, 3 or 4 percent, that is about as low as it can get. Now wedge that statistic onto a town like Charlotte, where the unemployment rate is even lower than the national average and far lower than New York's.

"I'm sure there are people in Charlotte who can do the job and do a great job. And I'm certainly not saying that the New York labor pool is better than the folks in Charlotte or anywhere else. It's just that when you need to fill positions here, you have so many more people to choose from."

In a vivid illustration of his concerns, Campbell contrasted the differences in the number of resumes he received in answer to help-wanted ads he placed in both The New York Times and in the Charlotte papers.