Upstarts: Practice Makes Perfect
c.o.jones refines operations before expanding to the South and Midwest.
By Maya Norris, Managing Editor -- Chain Leader, 8/1/2007
 The popular Chicken Tostada tops a crisp flour tortilla with honey-lime chicken, lettuce, pico de gallo, avocado, sour cream and Monterey Jack cheese.
|
Despite a tongue-in-cheek name, c.o.jones is all business when it comes to expansion. After all, founder Bob Potter has spent the last eight years sharpening and simplifying the full-service concept. “I wanted to make it simple on myself, so I thought this was something you could eventually replicate,” says Potter, a former general manager at two-unit Saybrook Fish House in Connecticut and former floor manager at the Colonial Inn, a fine-dining restaurant on Martha’s Vineyard.
Grown-Up Standards
Opened in 1999 in New Haven, Conn., near Yale University, c.o.jones features California-Mexican fare such as burritos and tacos. While the $8.50 chicken burrito and $8.75 steak burrito are best sellers, the menu also includes items such as Sweet Potato Tacos, $6.50, caramelized sweet potatoes and onions, black beans, lettuce and Monterey Jack cheese in two flour tortillas.
However, c.o.jones’ extensive tequila and margarita menu is what differentiates the concept, Potter says. It offers 25 margaritas, more than 90 premium tequilas and eight tequila samplers, which feature three types of tequila and a vegetable-juice chaser.
Alcohol makes up 60 percent of sales and helps push the check average up to $22 vs. $15 without alcohol. “There’s no way I would have done this if alcohol—if tequila—wasn’t really going to be a major component because trying to make money nowadays on just food is very hard,” Potter says.
“This is like a Baja Fresh or Chipotle except it’s for grown-ups because of the tequila component,” says Tom Coyle, executive director of restaurant and retail development at MZD, an Indianapolis-based marketing, advertising and public-relations agency that is working with c.o.jones on expansion.
Growing Pains
C.o.jones has evolved since it debuted eight years ago. Initially open for lunch and dinner, the company decided to focus on dinner only when the lack of street parking prevented nearby business workers from stopping in for lunch. That’s when Potter started to increase the tequila offerings to 90 from 30. “When you add the alcohol part of the equation, it extends your hours,” he says. “You’re busy from 5 p.m. right through to 11:30 to 12.”
C.o.jones then eliminated labor-intensive chicken and seafood entrees. It also got rid of coffee and dessert to prevent customers from lingering in the restaurant, thereby improving table turns—essential for a 1,600-square-foot unit with only 16 tables.
Food costs have since decreased 4 percent, to 33 percent, and labor costs went down 4 percent, to 23 percent.
Planning Ahead
Although the New Haven unit generates $560,000, Potter expects future units to post about $750,000 because they will be open for lunch. And once operators are comfortable running the units, they will operate burrito carts on nearby college campuses to build brand awareness and offer “Drive by Dining,” in which orders are delivered to customers in their cars. Potter expects those initiatives to boost sales 10 to 20 percent.
C.o.jones is partnering with experienced operators in joint ventures to open three units in Indiana, two in North Carolina and one in Missouri. Potter plans to start franchising in 2008, hoping some of his joint-venture partners will also serve as master franchisees. He expects 30 new units to open in the Midwest and South in five years.
View All Blogs
