Houston Chronicle - Schiller Del Grande

years. The original location, at Westheimer at
Kirby, serves such Mexican staples as tamales,
enchiladas and fajitas in a folksy south-of-theborder atmosphere. With an average check of
$10 per person, each new unit is projected to
reach an annual sales volume of about $1.8
million.
Reporter Nancy Sarnoff talked to CEO Lonnie
Schiller about the next phase of the Schiller
Del Grande restaurant empire.
Moneymakers
Friday August 6th, 2004
FIVE QUESTIONS WITH
LONNIE SCHILLER /CEO
Schiller Del Grande Restaurant Group
By NANCY SARNOFF
Chronicle Business Staff
On the heels of selling a majority stake in its
20-unit Cafe Express chain to Wendy's
International, Schiller Del Grande Restaurant
Group is launching an expansion of Taco
Milagro, its newest concept in casual dining.
The Houston-based company, which also
owns Cafe Annie, plans to open nine new Taco
Milagros in the Houston area within three
1. Q: Houston is such a competitive environment. Why are you expanding Taco
Milagro?
A: Wendy's came along and invested in Cafe
Express. They became a 45 percent investor.
Six months ago, Wendy's bought some more of
Cafe Express. They own 70 percent now. We
thought, "What are we going to do?" We're
still advising and highly involved), but they're
really running it now. We're trying to take the
lessons we learned from Cafe Express and
grow them into a plan to build the Taco
Milagro concept.
2. Q: Where will you open the new restaurants?
A: We've decided to build them all in Houston
and the surrounding areas: Woodlands,
Champions, Baybrook, Sugar Land.
3 . Q: How do you choose your locations?
A: We choose them based on three criteria:
trade area, site attributes and economics. We
use about a three-mile trade area where we
look at the typical demographics and psychographics: Who lives there? What do they like?
How much money do they make? Where do
they travel? Do they watch the Tour de France
or NASCAR? Then we look at the site attributes. Things considered there are traffic
counts, access, visibility, signage opportunity,
patio opportunity, who are the co-tenants. For
us, a Barnes & Noble is better than a Costco.
Third, which is not as important, believe it or
not, is site economics: the rent, the term, the
tenant allowance.
4. Q: You raised $3 .5 million to expand.
Who are your investors?
A: Fifteen high-net-worth individuals. Some
are investors in Cafe Express and Cafe Annie.
The restaurant business is not easy, and they
know that. Things that look good are gone a
month later. We have a reasonably good track
record. And the first unit does extremely well.
We've always paid people back and made
money for people. We're investing a big chunk
in it ourselves.
5. Q: How did you come up with the name?
A: The lady that works for (partners Robert
and Mimi Del Grande) is really nice. Her
name is Milagro . . . and the Milagro Beanfield
War . . . and it means miracle. We didn't want
to be too braggadocio, but it's got a good
sound.
Friday August 6th, 2004 Houston
Chronicle