Restauratour: Trial and Error at Mazzio's
Mazzio’s restaurant chain has spent five years getting its contemporary, clutter-free design just right.
By Lisa Bertagnoli, Contributing Editor -- Chain Leader, 10/1/2006
 Take an online tour of Mazzio’s. |
Mazzio’s Corp. has been nothing if not thorough in reimaging its restaurants, and the results show.
The first company-owned, ground-up prototype, which opened in June in Broken Arrow, Okla., looks nothing like its busy, tchotchke-filled predecessor. Large windows let in plenty of light, and a high ceiling lends a spacious feeling to the dining room. The minimal decor is limited to striking black-and-white food photos and a swirling red tomato logo. The floor, formerly covered with carpet and quarry tile, is now stained concrete in a subtle checkerboard pattern.
And, while maintaining a limited-service style, the company has changed a few service details. Customers once fetched their orders from the counter; now, servers bring it to them. Napkins, once stored on a sideboard, are set on the tables. Busers used to patrol the dining room with bus boxes. In the new Mazzio’s, they discreetly pick up used dinnerware and utensils as customers finish with them.
The new look and service style shore up Mazzio’s new menu, which features salads, pastas and sandwiches as well as its signature pizza. The new menu begat a new name: Mazzio’s Italian Eatery.
“We felt that the new look helps communicate the difference,” says David Poth, senior vice president of marketing and R&D for Tulsa, Okla.-based Mazzio’s, which has 61 company and 108 franchised locations.
Generational Difficulties
Plans for the reimaging began in 2000. “It was time,” Poth says. Most of the restaurants hadn’t been remodeled since the company’s inception in 1979 and were suffering aesthetically as well as structurally.
An in-house design team headed by Director of Facilities Ted Webb handled the initial redesign, the first example of which opened in Jackson, Miss., in 2002. However, by their own admission, executives made mistakes, including specifying a vinyl awning that bleached and tattered in the elements.
Plus, they felt they were getting the overall look a little bit wrong. “It was a bunch of 50- and 60-year-old men making decisions, and that’s not our target,” says Senior Vice President of Operations Steve Davis. Mazzio’s enlisted Kathy Diamond-Ulepic of Scottsdale, Ariz.-based Kathy Diamond Design Associates to finish the project.
“We forced ourselves to be disciplined to listen to her,” Davis says.
Touches of Green
Diamond devised a color palette that plays on the red, white and green of the Italian flag. The red remains flag-bright outside; inside, a subtle wine color covers the ceiling and booth backs. The green is a darker “vert,” again used as an accent color inside. Diamond-Ulepic translated the flag’s white to cream, which covers the walls inside.
Using a wooden partition and ceiling-high columns, she split the large, open dining room into two separate spaces. One side includes bar-height tables, a first for Mazzio’s that has proved wildly popular with customers.
Diamond-Ulepic positioned a green dropped ceiling, bedecked with oversize light bulbs, above one of the dining areas. “It separates the dining rooms to give visual interest to the space and gives us a lot of design flexibility for remodels,” she says.
Along similar lines, a green wave-shaped soffit above the counter highlights the ordering space and separates it from the dining room.
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Diamond-Ulepic also rethought some previous decisions. For instance, the same light bulbs that decorate the canopy hung above tabletops. However, the light proved too glaring for customers, so Diamond-Ulepic replaced them with ochre-colored pendant lights. She also replaced the exterior vinyl awnings with canvas awnings and banished neon signs, a Mazzio’s tradition, from the windows.
Not Quite Done Yet
While the ground-up prototype incorporates many of Diamond-Ulepic’s design modifications, even this iteration has undergone some changes. It opened without a television; when customers complained, Mazzio’s added a single screen. Customers like to watch TV at lunchtime, Poth explains. Video games, however, a fixture in the older restaurants, have not been reintroduced to the prototype. The video machines didn’t complement the new image; plus, game sales had slipped over the years due to the proliferation of sophisticated home video games, Davis explains.
Mazzio’s also overruled one of Diamond-Ulepic’s design decisions. Her design called for an ice-filled barrel of soft drinks near the ordering counter. To boost dessert sales, Mazzio’s replaced it with a refrigerated dessert display case. Dessert accounts for about 1.5 percent of the sales mix; Mazzio’s executives would like to raise that to 4 percent.
Some value-engineering decisions, for instance adding dimmer switches to lights, were incorporated as well. But overall, the chain didn’t cut corners, opting to use stainless steel wherever possible and installing solid-surface counters instead of laminate, which wears faster. “It’s pay now or pay later,” Poth says. “We’re doing things to extend the life of the building.”
The ground-up prototype cost $1.2 million to build. Franchisees who remodel spend anywhere from $50,000 to $200,000 per location, depending on the amount of structural improvement the restaurant needs. Thirty-nine units have been remodeled so far. The company expects about 80 percent to 90 percent of the remaining stores to follow suit in the next five years.
So far, the reimaging has been successful. Pizza, once 65 percent of sales, now accounts for 52 percent of sales. The new design and menu have sparked new and repeat business: Remodeled stores average $1.6 million in yearly sales, while older stores post about $1.1 million. Customer satisfaction has boomed as well: The number who rate the experience “good” has risen to 65 percent, from 38 percent in 2000, according to the company.
“ It’s fresh, it’s upbeat, it’s clean, and it’s easy to maintain—those are all contributing factors to its success,” says Diamond-Ulepic of the redesign.
Menu Sampler
Dippin’ Starters
- Mozzarella Sticks: fresh mozzarella coated with Italian seasoning, served with marinara and cool ranch dipping sauces, $4.99
Pastas
- Chicken-Fried Chicken Alfredo: fettuccine Alfredo topped with strips of fried chicken, $6.19
Hot Toasted Sandwiches
- Tuscan Smash: sliced ham, smoked turkey, onions and Swiss cheese with deli mustard, mayo, lettuce and tomato on a hoagie roll or focaccia, $5.39
Specialty Pizza
- Combo: pepperoni, sausage, mushrooms, onions, green peppers and black olives, $8.99 small, $12.19 medium, $14.19 large
Desserts
- New York Cheesecake, with raspberry sauce, $3.49
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