Uno Pizzeria Uses Chicago Legacy to Build New Prototype

It wasn’t the more substantial, cookie-cutter relaxed-eating idea Uno remodeled into along the Northeast, hundreds of miles absent from the heart of Chicago. Soon after getting referred to as Pizzeria Uno for many many years, the brand experienced been through a menu growth, implemented new styles, changed its name to Uno Chicago Grill, and moved its headquarters to Boston.

Amid all those shifts, the initially Pizzeria Uno cafe in downtown Chicago had remained the identical, and Frederick favored a return to those people roots. To him, the brand’s most current franchise push presents an possibility to distribute the vibe, lifestyle, and menu of the initial Pizzeria Uno to markets nationwide.

“It’s a pizza joint,” Frederick says of the brand’s new prototype. “It’s not a relaxed-eating glance and feel at all. It’s just about like the distinction concerning Crimson Lobster and a seafood dive.”

Frederick calls the new Pizzeria Uno model a hybrid among fast relaxed and total assistance, with counter services at lunch and table services at night. The menu, about two-thirds the measurement of the brand’s standard casual-eating menu, is far more pizza-centric but nonetheless includes normal add-ons like wings, salads, sandwiches, and desserts.

The notion is approximately 2,000 sq. feet, which isn’t way too far off from the 3,000-square-foot room of the authentic Chicago locale. But Frederick says that range is by no suggests an exact concentrate on. Rather, the design arrives with a customizable floor plan that encourages operators to enter 2nd-era areas that invoke a special experience as opposed to a one-dimensions-fits-all method.

“The great thing about just the size is certainly lower create-out fees and reduce rent and all of that,” Frederick claims. “The other factor is, pizzas are the most successful point that we can provide. It lends alone to improved margins. On a financial gain-per-sq.-foot foundation, it’s heading to be considerably much better.”

He provides that even as far more people return to dining rooms, Uno’s takeout and shipping business enterprise hasn’t waned.

The Pizzeria Uno model is equipped with new cooking engineering that eliminates any notion that deep-dish pizza involves a for a longer period cooking time. Frederick suggests oven technological know-how has appear a lengthy way and that Uno’s operations staff worked with Middleby Marshall, a cafe offer firm, to uncover the correct tools for quick and regular cooking.

Now extra science than artwork, the method is about obtaining the capacity to fulfill the demands of individuals all through peak situations. The CEO claims the chain has achieved this by placing food items into the fingers of company in about 10 minutes.

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The prototype, which employs the very same recipes and substances as the unique place, opened past summer months in Highland, Indiana, a suburb of Chicago. When Frederick visits with possible franchisees through Discovery Working day, he will take them to the downtown store for dinner, and then they travel to the concept in Highland. Concerning people two destinations, no a person can taste variations in the pizza, the CEO says.

At the inaugural spot, off-premises orders make up much more than 50 % of income, better than what leadership predicted. Although Frederick states the debut has been phenomenal, the company model and offerings are continue to being tweaked.

“We initially started off with one of those types in which you could go down the line, which I consider is en vogue now,” Frederick claims. “What we identified is that with pizza, people typically know what they want. They come, and they’re not picking factors out. Which is been a big lesson for us, and going ahead, we’re additional very likely to use it as additional desk area or even a beer and wine bar.”

In addition to in-line and standalone web sites, Uno is also seeking to enter motels with a entire-services cafe that’s effectively a duplicate of the original Chicago retailer, down to the “water stains on the ceiling,” Frederick notes.

The CEO provides that Uno’s ROI is specifically compelling for lodge proprietors who previously have a preexisting kitchen and are only a several pizza ovens absent from opening a spot. Hotel company offer built-in dine-in site visitors, Frederick suggests, and the cafe would also benefit from takeout and 3rd-occasion shipping and delivery.

Uno also strategies to open takeout/delivery–only spots, strictly as a health supplement and “return on financial investment kicker,” as Frederick puts it. As of November, Uno prepared to signal a lease to open a 1,000-sq.-foot, off-premises retailer in Orlando.

“We’re heading to do it for all the business enterprise reasons we have done in advance of, but in terms of a demonstrate-it-out, I really don’t really feel we will need to do it,” Frederick suggests. “You just seem at our [full-service restaurant] prototype and say, Okay, here’s the company we’re doing on takeout and supply. Just picture a smaller sized house with a smaller sized make-out prices.”

At the time of publication, Uno experienced a few franchisees signed up for the new prototype, like one particular who needs a resort-based restaurant yet another who’s eyeing a standalone version of the Pizzeria Uno design and a 3rd who operates a few of accommodations but would like to open a satellite restaurant about 20 miles away, as very well as a takeout/shipping unit.

Frederick states other operators in the pipeline are shut to signing specials. One franchisee who invested time with the CEO in Chicago even expressed fascination in opening 20 new locations throughout a number of states.

In phrases of the place these most recent stores will land, the CEO states Uno is additional focused on the “who” as an alternative of the “where.” The chain is concentrating on operators who are advanced sufficient to have their possess infrastructure and can justify constructing many models.

In 2022, the organization hopes to indication 15 new franchisees, and Frederick feels self-assured in that objective mainly because of in which Uno stands in the cafe subject.

“It’s not [a] brand name-new pizza thought, nor is it an set up model exactly where there’s no white area,” he suggests. “Our benefit proposition is we’re a really effectively-acknowledged model in the group with current infrastructure guidance and massive quantities of white house.”