 |
For more business news, subscribe now.
April 14, 2008
Boston-based healthy, fast-casual eatery to open multiple Utah outlets
By Debbi Olson
The Enterprise
UFood Grill, a Boston-based healthy, fast-casual restaurant chain, is preparing to enter the Utah market as part of the company's northwest expansion.
Franchisee Greg Felder has entered into a development agreement with UFood Grill to open 38 UFood Grill restaurants in Utah, Colorado, Montana, Idaho and Wyoming within the next five-and-half years. Within that region, the first restaurants will be opened in Salt Lake City due to its central location in the five-state region and its demographics.
"We encouraged him to launch in Salt Lake," said Eric Spitz, co-founder and executive vice president of business development of UFood Grill. "We think it's an educated consumer. It's a growing market. It's a consumer that wants to be in the outdoors and that generally lends itself nicely to our business, which is a better-for-you concept, and those two things tend to play together."
Currently UFood Grill has six restaurants in the Boston area and one each in California and Florida.
"We have sold multiple territories across the country, but they have not yet opened their stores," Spitz said. "Chicago will be the next store that opens."
Felder, an investor who discovered UFood Grill on a trip to Boston in January, said he initially invested and bought stock in the company, and then decided to pursue buying franchises. The Montana native is relocating to Salt Lake City to set up his franchise organization and begin establishing restaurants throughout the five-state region.
"I'm going to assemble a team of experienced people to put these restaurants in very rapidly," Felder said. "We're going to start in Salt Lake City. We're going to put at least two in there. Our growth plan is not exactly figured out. We might put two in Denver, two in Boise, we might build out Salt Lake. We're not exactly sure yet."
Felder and the UFood Grill owners liked the Salt Lake City area due to its stable and growing economy. It is anticipated that the first Salt Lake restaurant will open this fall.
"The economy there [in Utah] is a lot better than other places," Felder said. "The concept, I believe, will work anywhere, put in the right location. I think the time and the concept of UFood couldn't be better. I think the world is ready."
Once settled in Utah, Felder will begin looking at site locations for the restaurants, which are typically placed in inline centers. Existing restaurants range in size from 2,000 to 2,500 square feet and seat approximately 50 people. Each store has 20 employees, both part-time and full-time.
Customers order their foods at the counter and can choose from a menu that offers everything from grilled hamburgers, chicken and steak tips to salads, sandwiches and a variety of side dishes, including french fries that are baked, not fried.
"We have a number of sides that aren't french fries," Spitz said. "We have broccoli, we have brown rice, we have side salads, we have black beans. We have sweet mashed potatoes. If you want fries, we got fries. They're still french fries, but they're not fried. We have a proprietary 16,000-watt oven that, with a little bit of no-transfat oil sprayed on to the fries, we can make them crispy and they are every bit as good as every french fry out there. So, if you're going to have french fries, these are the ones to have."
UFood Grill is owned by George Naddaff, founder of Boston Market, with partners Spitz and Gary Jacobus, who started the restaurant chain after acquiring a sports nutrition store and restaurant that combined a healthy-foods restaurant with an in-house nutrition center, called Lo Fat No Fat. The team then founded the KnowFat Franchise Co. and proceeded to grow their UFood Grill chain of better-for-you quick serve restaurant/retail outlets.
"The general concept is that we have built what we believe to be the big brand in the better-for-you quick-serve restaurant space," Spitz said. "There is a big demand in our marketplace for better-for-you food. All of the major restaurants across the country have entries into that market space, but no one has addressed the branding around a restaurant that has that at its core. Subway does a campaign around it, various other people have concepts that they pull in around healthy, but no one really has a healthy concept. Our concept is about providing choice, it's about providing information, it's about providing enough variety that is as healthy as you want to eat, all the way from super-duper healthy steamed chicken with no salt with brown rice, all the way down to a bacon cheeseburger that is lean beef, low fat cheese with turkey bacon on a whole wheat bun."
The company initially considered targeting health-food conscious people, but determined that it wasn't a broad enough market to sustain a successful business model.
"You want to aim at people who like the theme. In this case we discovered that there just aren't enough of those people, so we needed to broaden our message to include everybody, because everybody generally wants to eat better, but most people aren't willing to give up what it requires to really eat better," Spitz said. "So we have built our business to aim at those people. One of our key brand messages is the idea of choice. It's about customizing, it's about addressing your own needs and not being forced-fit into someone else's idea of what you should be eating."
All foods at UFood Grill are prepared fresh at the time of order, and are made on a grill, steamed or baked. There are no fryers in the kitchen, and most of the beverages are diet, including a soda fountain that offers six diet soda choices. The menu also provides customers with dietary guides and nutritional information that breaks down the items into several special dietary need categories, including vegetarian, reduced sodium, reduced fat, gluten free and low-carb items clearly highlighted. Products used in the restaurants include lean meats, natural and organic ingredients, fresh produce, whole grains and light cheeses and dressings.
Prices range from $3.99 for a plain hamburger to $11.99 for steak-tip platters. The average check, which includes entree, side and a beverage, costs $7.99, Spitz said.
Also associated with UFood Grill is heavyweight boxing champion George Foreman, who is a shareholder and celebrity spokesman for the company.
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
