Long Island restaurateur wants to build a better burger empire

Long Island Business News, Nov 25, 2005 by Adina Genn

John J. Tunney III is a young-looking old timer who's betting that the next big breakthrough in cuisine will involve the hamburger.

With 30 years of experience as a restaurateur, Tunney stacks the hamburger right up there with the elegant meals he's become noted for at his classy and packed Blue Honu in Huntington.

But to get a real whiff of Tunney's growth strategy you have to walk right past the French doors of Blue Honu and look next door at the walk-in shop where he sells hamburgers, fries, hot dogs, chicken strips, shakes and sodas to the casual crowd. Compared to Blue Honu with its soaring ceilings and long bar, this place may be little - but it's hardly bashful. It is the first unit in what Tunney calls the American Burger Co. By this time next year he and his partners expect it to be the foundation of a publicly-owned company whose name will resonate around the nation.

Tunney is no lightweight. He's run Carltun & Co. at the Oheka (along with Carltun on the Park) along with Temple Bar and Grill in Caesar's Palace in Atlantic City. When he was the honcho of the restaurant Olio! at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas he catered private dinners for regulars like John Travolta and Kelly Preston.

At 47, Tunney is cocky enough to say that the giants of fast foods forgot the birth of the burger. As exotic as his Blue Honu is, he's truly a traditionalist who feels that when it comes to burgers the American consumer is a connoisseur.

I would love to open next door to McDonalds, he says. I can't wait for that day. They did all the demographic research. Let the American people vote. I don't fear that one bit.

Pick up one of these fast-food versions, he says, and they just slide apart: They're not layered right. It tells me someone doesn't care about me.

All his burgers will be affordable, he pledges, but that means setting his lowest-priced burger at $3.22 (just a penny more than a Big Mac). Of course McDonalds can offer you a bare-bones burger for 97 cents.

ABC has already opened in Atlantic City and another is set for Hicksville by mid-January. Sites are being scouted right now in Smithtown, Babylon, Patchogue and Seaford.

Unlike Mickey D's and the other cookie-cutter-style fast-food outlets, Tunney will offer four different prototypes, depending on location and local mores:

* The Huntington stand serves sidewalk traffic and is the kind ABC hopes to replicate it for a Manhattan storefront, possibly on East 23rd Street.

* The Hicksville venue seats will favor the flavor of a diner where instead of mini-jukeboxes in every booth there'll be stations for iPods. And the next venue will feature a drive-through.

* Atlantic City is casual, aimed at ambling by on the boardwalk.

* And in many locations, the local ABC will be a typical food site, complete with that suburban staple, the mandatory drive- through window.

Tunney is big on the details.

The fries have to be fantastic and there has to be a crunchy- edge bun. Milkshakes can never be hard at the center and can never have any chemical aftertaste. Everything must be cooked fresh and must be made with the lowest amount of fat.

Don't forget the other touches either. All straws must be bright red, all fries should be packed in neat rectangular boxes.

No matter what store format the local ABC adapts, it must always encourage takeout. That last point is important in designing family- style eating places. The researchers at the NPD Group in Port Washington emphasize that today America depends on restaurants more than ever before as places for meals to-go. (And the product has to be as good as most things they get at home.)

Tunney is more fortunate than McDonald founder Ray Kroc, who never had an investment banker on staff.

When it comes to seeking investors and handling legal matters, Tunney can lean on Cary Sucoff, long-time friend, business partner, investment banker and attorney, all rolled into one.

Together, Sucoff and Tunney developed ABC's private placement memorandum. It contains all of the required legalities, but also captures the spirit of ABC - the lingo, reviews, even quotes depicting Americans' obsession with burgers.

Tunney's learned to step on the brakes a little. One North Carolina prospect wants to buy the rights. It sounds good to Tunney. If they're interested in me, I'm interested in them. But he's taking Sucoff's advice, and putting that prospect on hold.

Others have inquired about franchising, but that's not in the cards, yet.

I want to maintain authority and control, Tunney says. It's too new.