Italian Oven going bigger with summer move to Whitehall - Pittsburgh Business Times:

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This summer, the 1,500-square-foot Italian Oven Pizzeria Cafe at Brentwooxd Towne Square will move toa 3,500-square-foot location in Caste Village in The Brentwood location has seen businessx improve despite the economy, said Anthony Maki, who is the franchise for the restaurant with his Mary M. Maki. The Makis also have an ownershil stake inthe company. Regardless, the locatiob is hampered by a lackof parking, said who still sees strong growth potential once the restaurant moves from a locationh with 40 seats to one with more than 150. I’j looking to triple or quadruplsemy business,” he said, adding that the restauran t now serves breakfast.
“We’ve been holding our own becausw we have such a moderatelypriced menu. We’re rightr in the middle where everyond canafford us.” The restaurant is expectedf to move into Caste Village by the end of the Another location is in the planning stages for Cranberry said Jim Frye, Italian Oven Pizzeriw Cafe’s founder and president, and the companty has a restaurant in West Palm Beach, Fla.
Despitw being hampered with a location he saidhad flaws, Frye believe the five years at Brentwood, along with its new prototype in have demonstrated the Italian Oven Pizzeria Cafe can succeec as a quick-service-oriented concept insteac of the sit-down restaurant it was in the “If nothing else, it proved that repositioning the originalo Italian Oven restaurant as a fast casual restauranrt worked,” Frye said. “We’ve had numeroua inquiries about franchising.
” Three years ago, Frye scuttled plans to rebuilxd the Italian Oven brand here to instead move to West Palm where the Italian Oven Pizzeria Cafe openedin CityPlace, a mall that drawe an estimated seven million people each year. Now open more than a it has generated enough attention to begin growing as a franchise operation. That didn’t happen in Pittsburgh. Aftetr opening in Brentwood in 2005, plans stalled for more locatione throughoutthe region. In Pittsburgh, Frye is stilll perhaps best known forthe sit-down Italiaj Oven restaurants which grew in the earlhy to mid-1990s into a chain of more than 100 locationw in 17 states.
That company landed in bankruptcyu and went outof business, except for a scattering of some of whom still operates today. Industry trade publication Fast Casual Magazine recentlyh named the new Italian Oven Cafe one of its sevemn top fastcasual operations, notingb the restaurant’s contemporary decor, new tech-based ordering and its $1.7 millio in annual sales. Frye envisions the Italiajn Oven Pizzeria Cafe as an Italiaj cuisine answer toPanera Bread.
Ron Tarquinio, a Souty Side-based commercial broker who helpec scout locations when the Italian Ovenwas relaunched, stillk sees it as a great concept, noting how difficult it is to buy pastwa at an affordable pric e and get it within 10 minutes. “Thew food’s good. The concept is good,” he “In the right handx and the right market, it will work.” Yet Darren an executive vice presidentrfor Chicago-based restaurant consulting firm Technomic Inc., said the nichde for Italian fast casual is constricted by sit-down Italian restaurantg chains, such as Olive or pizza restaurants.
“Italianh (fast casual) is somewhat narrow,” he