Sammy's fires up plan to revamp chain's menu, decor

Nation's Restaurant News, Nov 15, 2004 by Lisa Jennings

LA JOLLA, CALIF. -- Ladeki Restaurant Group, parent of the popular Sammy's Woodfired Pizza brand, launched a comprehensive redesign of its 14 restaurants and an expansion of the chain's menu.

The decor and menu overhaul is expected to be complete at seven units in the San Diego area by the end of the year. Within the next six months, Sammy's locations elsewhere in Southern California and in Las Vegas and Arizona are scheduled to receive the upgrades.

Owner Sami Ladeki said he felt it was time to update the look of the restaurants, which he founded in the affluent San Diego County coastal town of La Jolla in 1989. The changes, he said, will reenergize the upscale-casual chain, which generated an estimated $25 million in sales in 2003. Sales so far this year have increased by 4.5 percent, said Ladeki, and the chain has been growing steadily.

With wood-oven-baked gourmet pizzas at the center of the menu, Ladeki said Sammy's is sometimes referred to as "Spago South," though it has no affiliation with Wolfgang Puck. Sammy's primary competition in the wood-fired-pizza category comes locally from Los Angeles-based California Pizza Kitchen, which has 170 locations in 27 states, but Ladeki said the changes were not motivated by competition but simply by his desire "to change with the times.

"We're taking an old lady and making her a young lady," he said. "It's like we're giving it a vitamin or a B-12 shot."

Sammy's is the largest of the Ladeki brands, which also include the upscale Roppongi restaurants, whose two fine-dining Asian concepts are in La Jolla and Palm Springs, Calif.; two Prime 10 Steakhouses in Del Mar and Rancho Mirage, Calif.; Maraskino, an American grill attached to the Prime 10 in Rancho Mirage; the fine-dining Fresh Seafood Restaurant and Bar in La Jolla; and the pan-Asian-theme Noodle Bar in Palm Springs.

Sammy's gourmet pizzas, salads and signature "messy sundae" dessert appeal to a general audience. But Jeff Moogk, Ladeki Restaurant Group's executive chef, said the menu alterations aim "to offer more options to broaden our customer base."

Twenty new items are being added to the menu, including small "tapas" dishes, which will enhance Sammy's reputation as a restaurant where the sharing of dishes is encouraged, Moogk said.

New small-plate offerings include pan-fried pork dumplings, coconut-shrimp skewers with orange-horseradish sauce, slow-smoked barbecue beef quesadillas, Thai chicken satay with spicy peanut sauce and oak-roasted Asian portobello mushrooms.

"It's always been a sharing restaurant, and we're expanding on that," Moogk said. "The new menu lends itself to people wanting to try different things and sample new items."

Among the new entrees are health-oriented options, such as a low-carbohydrate oak-roasted salmon fillet with ponzu salad. But the new menu will also include such dishes as barbecued baby back pork ribs, steak, sandwiches and French fries.

"I like to have French fries once in a while. Who doesn't?" said the Lebanese-born Ladeki. "People have the choice."

Several pasta dishes that Moogk said weren't selling well were jettisoned from the revamped menu, though four of the best sellers will remain.

Two new soups have been added--fresh tomato basil and four-onion. But Sammy's very popular salads were not changed, Moogk said. He said Sammy's grilled chicken salad with Gorgonzola and walnuts is the top seller by far.

The new menu required physical changes to the kitchen, which are being done along with the redesign. Ladeki estimated that he is investing $400,000 to $450,000 per restaurant for the overall upgrade. Sammy's restaurants range in size from 3,000 to 4,000 square feet.

The new look will bring more upscale contemporary Californian design to the restaurants, with dark woods, stone, tile and granite replacing the previous garden-theme ambience dominated by Saltillo tile.

Booths will be constructed, and the restaurants will get new flooring, ceilings, fabric treatments, wood paneling and lighting. Patios will be redone to give more of an "inside living room" feel, Ladeki said.

Even the servers' uniforms will change. They will wear black shirts instead of white shirts with ties.

The renovations have been done without closing any restaurants. "We're doing most of the work at night," Ladeki said.

The units that already have completed the upgrade have shown increases in sales ranging from 3 percent to 17 percent, said Ladeki, who is looking to add another five locations in San Diego County in new growth areas over the next two years.

Ladeki said he also is looking at more locations in Las Vegas, where there are two Sammy's locations. A third unit in Las Vegas was sold earlier this year. And a Sammy's in Temecula, Calif., closed earlier this month after five years because, Ladeki said, it was in a mall that hasn't been successful.

With five restaurants in the Palm Springs area, Ladeki said, he would like to establish San Diego, Palm Springs and Las Vegas as his three "hubs."

Changes are under way at some of the other brands in the Ladeki group. The Roppongi in La Jolla recently added a raw bar with flesh oysters, for example.