RUI targets convenience, value with new Pantana

Nation's Restaurant News, Jan 13, 1992 by Alan Liddle

Van Skike said traditional combination pizzas, including the sausage-pepperoni, seven-cheese and tomato-basil combos, have garnered the greatest share of pizza sales in the early going. He noted, however, that the sales of some of the Pantana Originals, including the pizzas topped with Jamaican-style jerk chicken, barbecued chicken and fajita-flavored chicken, are "creeping up" on the leaders.

Chickens, which are finished off in the wood-fired oven and sold in one-quarter and one-half-bird portions, are also sold at Pantana. Before being cooked, the birds are marinated in a blend of juniper berries, brown sugar, nutmeg and kosher salt, and then rubbed with seasonings.

Unlike other full-service restaurants operated by R.U.I., Pantana sells only beer and wine. As a result, its beverage sales, as a percentage of total sales, are some five to eight points lower. Co-manager Van Skike said Pantana's beverage sales represent about 20 percent of the total take.

Under normal circumstances, R.U.I. might be disappointed with Pantana's performance to date. But company officials have indicated that the restaurant's third-floor site, the transitional nature of the neighborhood and the fact that many of the surrounding retail and residential spaces have yet to be occupied mean they will just have to be patient.

But some observers question whether even Joblike patience will reward R.U.I. with a profitable restaurant.

Many Seattleites consider the neighborhood surrounding Pantana to be unsafe and seedy, and they doubt that the movement to reclaim the area and create middle-class housing will succeed. More than a few local operators would probably rather play the lottery than spend money to open in the area.

"There is risk," Lindstrom acknowledged of his company's pioneering effort. "But as it stands right now, there is plenty of [positive] momentum. Seattle has never had downtown rentals . . . [yet] these [Newmark spaces] are about 80 percent leased, and that [progress] is far ahead of projections."

"It's a Phoenix-rising situation," R.U.I.'s Giboney said. "There are more construction cranes along Second Avenue [near Pantana] than in any other part of the city."

Pantana is not R.U.I.'s first risky venture in Seattle.

The company was also among the advance forces for revitalization when it opened Cutters Bayhouse near the Pike Place Market in 1983. Cutters' strong performance over the years has left the company with no regrets about its decision to help "pioneer" the neighborhood, officials said.

R.U.I. originally planned to open the concept that it now calls Pantana in Bloomington, Minn., in 1990 or early 1991. Those plans went awry, however, when the real-estate deal fell through because of the landlord's financial woes.

The working name for the concept at that time was Zodeo.