Not Your Average Joe's mantra: Be colorful and multiply - Company Profile

Nation's Restaurant News, Sept 7, 1998 by David Mack

NEEDHAM, Mass. -- Opening any restaurant is a daunting task. But for Stephen Silverstein, founder and proprietor of the regional, soon-to-be-three-unit Not Your Average Joe's chain, cloning his upscale-yet-casual concept in the small New England town of Needham, Mass., directly across the street from the town hall, carried with it a larger-than-usual bundle of issues.

The original Not Your Average Joe's restaurant was built in Dartmouth, Mass., and its 3,100-square-foot interior was designed by Silverstein, who worked with a team of local artists, craftsmen and painters to bring his "whimsical, upbeat and colorful" concept to life. The Needham restaurant, like its predecessor, has a playful and energetic atmosphere ideally suited to showcasing its eclectic American cuisine. The exterior has a cosmopolitan feel, with large cafe windows that open out to the sidewalk and street. The 5,000-squarefoot, colorful interior features a red maple floor with yellow slate accents. The walls are adorned with wrought-iron artworks created by a friend of Silverstein. The brightly hued and richly textured walls surround a variety of seating configurations, including booths, tables and settees. In all, the operation has approximately 130 seats, of which 12 are at the large, painted-concrete counter overlooking the open kitchen, which features a wood-burning oven as well as a grill and a rotisserie. "The whole concept revolves around the open kitchen," Silverstein explained. 'That's an important part of what we do. We know the customers like it, and the staff likes it also. So it makes the dining experience more enjoyable for everyone." When Silverstein began planning the development of the Needham unit, he called upon the talents of Boston-based restaurant architect Peter Niemitz. Niemitz needed to find a strong, clear identity for the concept that could be rolled out to multiple suburban locations, but he didn't want to sacrifice the funky charm and whimsy of the Dartmouth store. Equally important, he needed to develop elements that were flexible and dynamic enough that later units could retain the concept's feel without being cookie-cutter copies. "Because we're not a chain and can't pay chain prices for real estate, we have to be more flexible in adapting our design to each location," Silverstein said. "From a design standpoint, our look is closer to fine dining [than to casual dining], but on the other hand, our table settings use paper napkins. It has a very independent-restaurant feel. It's a little too sophisticated to feel like a chain; there's no gimmicky stuff on the walls, no tennis rackets from what's-his-name or any of that kind of stuff." Silverstein purchased the restaurant in early 1997 for $380,000. He noted that "soft costs" -- such as design fees, legal fees, permits, preopening payroll and promotional costs -- added $100,000 to the expense sheet. Construction, materials, furniture and fixtures together cost nearly $500,000. By opening day in September 1997, the p rice tag had soared to nearly $1 million. Footing a bill that large made Silverstein into something of a philosopher. "A word to the wise," Silverstein said. "When you buy a restaurant -- if you're a real player in this business -- you're going to want to scrap everything and do your own design from scratch." According to Niemitz, when Silverstein first approached him and his team about designing the Needham unit, the owner explained that the original Joe's unit already was successful and popular with customers, and he didn't want the new unit to stray too far from that paradigm. "We never want to create something for an owner or operator that they don't understand and don't feel in touch with," Niemitz said. "A successful restaurant is one in which there is a harmony between the food, the style and the concept. "I think there's something there for everybody," he added. "It's modern in feel and kind of hip and exciting in terms of its details and colors and finishes. It's very bright and light, and I think it appeals to a wide variety of demographics. ... It's family-friendly, yet also hip enough to appeal to Generation X clientele and comfortable enough for older clientele." According to Niemitz, the most striking visual element in the Needham unit is its assortment of glass Italian pendent lighting fixtures, a stock item that the architect remarked "has a modern but retro shape to it. It was selected for its color intensity. They're not expensive, they're fun to look at and they're colorful." Although the light fixtures are simple items, Niemitz affirms that they play a significant role in creating the concept's ambience. "When you look through the space, you see this mosaic of different colors and layers of different elements, and I think that's what makes the place fun," he said. "The design feels very simple, but it's also quite complex," said Silverstein, who feels that point is best illustrated by the way Niemitz's team prepared the restaurant's wall finishes. First, the walls were covered in a rough plaster stucco. Second, the artisans painted them raspberry, and then, after the first color dried, a second layer of yellow paint was applied. In the final stage the walls were sanded down so that the raspberry undercoat shows through on the raised ridges of the stucco. "When it came to the wall finishes, from a budget standpoint we knew we couldn't afford to do any kind of elaborate mill work or paneling or specialty finishes," Niemitz said, "But we said that's OK, because it's all part of the concept; it's a very casual, easy place. We don't need to be elaborate. "Steve likes to bring in artisans who create artistic interiors," he added. "We worked with a great painter who did all the staining and all the wall finishes. We kind of directed and selected the colors and the technique, but we worked with this artisan to implement it. ... It's a fairly time-intensive process that yields a kind of hard, aged finish, and it's fun." "The effect is kind of like a paisley design," Silverstein added. When Silverstein sat down with Niemitz to select raw textures and materials for the Needham store, the owner eschewed anything unnecessarily fancy or pretentious. "There's no granite," he commented. "I didn't want to do any of that kind of stuff. All the bar counter tops are concrete that has been painted. The reason is that granite and a lot of similar materials all shine. And we're not a shiny operation." "With the bar tops, we wanted to use concrete just because it was an interesting material," Niemitz said. 'We cast the concrete bar top and food counter top; then it was all painted different colors to give it the illusion of stone. It's not trying to be faux stone; it's more a part of the concept's whimsical aspect." Niemitz and Silverstein's decision to set the interior tone with painted finishes on the wall and bar makes adapting the concept to changing styles both efficient and economical. "We can close down the restaurant, and in just one weekend we can change the whole feel of the restaurant with just paint," Silverstein noted. "So two or three years from now, when we're all sick of it, we just shut the place down for a couple of days, and when we reopen, people will say, Wow! This place looks totally different!' For less than 20 grand, we can have a whole new restaurant." "There are no vintage elements or distinctive pieces that would make you say this is an Italian restaurant or a seafood restaurant or a French restaurant," Niemitz said. "If Steve were to change his menu, he could change his finishes quickly and transform the restaurant into something else." Silverstein and Niemitz had to exercise caution before making alterations to the restaurant's pre-existing exterior. "We have a storefront on Main Street," he said "Part of the challenge was to be sympathetic to the traditional nature of the streetscape but to give our store a modern, hip look. We wanted to be colorful and have impact, but we also wanted to be a good neighbor, particularly because it's right across the street from City Hall." One of the most egregious elements of the original exterior was a standing-seam, metal mansard roof, bordered by a checkerboard pattern, which Niemitz and Silverstein agreed did not work with the look they were trying to achieve. After painting the building's brick facade its current shade of gray, they replaced the checkerboard pattern with a border of colorful, more abstract shapes. They then installed new windows that open to the sidewalk. The final change was to wrap the metal mansard with a dark canvas awning. The awning presented its own challenges, however. Silverstein was informed that local signage ordinances prevented him from displaying too large or too distracting a logo on his awning. That stumbling block easily was surmounted by securing the town's permission to adorn the long, narrow awning with several smaller representations of the store's new logo, each illuminated by a narrow spotlight. The town's lawmakers, satisfied that the logo was now an artistic element and not an eyesore, approved the idea. "The logo on our awning is casual, it's fun; we like to say it looks like a shack," Silverstein said. "I like my wife's description best: 'It's happy.'"