Out-of-the-way restaurants have to try harder

Nation's Restaurant News, Nov 7, 1994 by Caroyln Walkup

Why would someone open a big-city restaurant in a blue-collar twon?

It's hard enough for restaurateurs to make a living in big cities. Yet some adventurous souls think that if they open a great restaurant, diners will come, no matter where it is.

Sometimes, operators open partially for sentimental reasons, such as a desire to run a nice restaurant in their hometowns. That was a motivation for Tony Mantuano, who had made it as a big-city chef at Chicago's Spiaggia before he opened Mangia in Kenosha, Wis.

Gerald Buster and his now-ex-wife opened The Cottage in south suburban Calumet City, Ill., near their home. At the time they thought that opening a fine-dining restaurant in that location was a good idea since there were no others in the area.

Other operators simply prefer a small-town lifestyle. Iowa native Harold Elder, who had worked at several big-name Chicago restaurants, opened his Elder's Mill in Richmond, Ill., a quaint semirural town near the Wisconsin border.

In spite of a less-than-ideal location, The Cottage is celebrating its 20th anniversary this fall. Mangia is alive and well in its sixth year. Elder's Mill, however, closed last year after a three-year struggle.

Buster and Mantuano admitted they had to work harder to attract customers than they would have had to in a downtown like Chicago or in an affluent suburb. "Good press helped us a lot," noted Buster, who also has had success in marketing theme dinners, such as those featuring the kind of food served on the Titanic and on the Orient Express.

However, most of his customers come from some distance, rather than from the surrounding communities. "The South Side is not as interested in fine dining as some other parts of the city," Buster said.

Buster also has downscaled the menu in recent years, reducing the dinner check average from $40 to $30. "We have a higher customer count, but I'm not sure if it's a better bottom line. It could be just a tradeoff," he said.

When Mantuano and family members first opened Mangia, a contemporary Italian trattoria, most of the locals thought it was strange, he recalled. While customers from Chicago's northern suburbs and Milwaukee drove 40 minutes to have dinner there, the locals stayed away, and lunches in particular were soft.

"We have introduced programs to get the locals in," Mantuano noted, such as promoting Sunday nights as family times when children can eat for free. Mangia also supports political candidates and community organizations by hosting fundraisers.

"Now we have 100 people at lunch on the average, just from within the community," Mantuano said.

He also learned that advertising in the local newspaper works to bring in customers. It succeeded in getting across the message that Mangia is an affordable restaurant.

Attracting customers to his Mediterraneanthemed Chicago restaurant, Tuttaposto, when he and his wife, Cathy, opened it three years ago proved much easier. However, Mangia is more profitable.

"The overhead is much lower, and we own the real estate there," he explained. A drawback at Mangia is getting quality specialty food products there because it's not on the purveyors' route.

Consequently, Mantuano receives deliveries for both restaurants at Tuttaposto and trucks Mangia purchases there himself. "It's really a hassle," he said.

Elder, also a chef, hoped to attract enough customers to his French-accented Elder's Mill to make a living. But he finally closed it because "it wasn't making the money to pay the bills," he said from his new chef's post at Spasso, an Italian restaurant in Wauconda, located slightly closer to Chicago.

Most of Elder's Mill customers traveled some distance on weekends from Chicago's wealthy North Shore and Barrington suburbs and en route from the Wisconsin resort town of Lake Geneva.

However, week nights were very slow, and the locals did not come, Elder said.

A new off-track betting parlor nearby failed to bring him customers. And community opposition has delayed construction of a proposed freeway that would make getting to Richmond easier.

Elder chose the location because he likes the rural lifestyle better than the intense competition he found in Chicago. He grew up in a very small town in Iowa.

Spasso has been open for four years, and business there has increased slowly since a difficult first year, according to one of Elder's bosses, co-owner Andy Webber. "Now it's not unusual for guests to drive 30 minutes. It's definitely a destination restaurant."

After Webber and his partners turned the corner with Spasso, they opened their second restaurant, Mia Cucina, last spring in the more densely populated suburb of Palatine. They were greeted by big crowds right from the start.

It took the Chicago daily newspaper reviewers almost four years to get out to Spasso to do a review, Webber noted. When he worked at such city restaurants as Scoozi, the reviewers came within the first few months.

In spite of the greater challenges of running citystyle restaurants in offbeat locations, all of these operators are happy to be where they are.