Sun Belt September, 2013

Pitbull Takes Miami Subs Global
Mark Miller Appears at
Boneheads in Atlanta
La. Restaurant Show
1st F2Ti Symposium Held
Oh! Miami Grill. That’s a product of Pitbull’s
desire to create a larger footprint with a full
bar and grill with great music playing
throughout—jazz is now coming into it as
well—where it’s more of a bistro-type menu.
Same great food, same great products…and
in a much larger footprint, and that’s primarily for the airports. It’s a great look.
In all of the restaurants, you’re going to
find big murals, 12-foot murals, really showing South Beach and the old-looking hotels
in a very modern setting, a real art-deco type
of setting with LED lighting behind it. Really
dynamite looking. It’s very attractive, with
images of Pitbull on it as well. Great-looking
art deco type of a look.
Q: So you’re working on a new concept
as well?
This is a new concept. It’s a larger footprint. It’s a place that we’re going to have the
champagne, have the full bar available, primarily its openings will be at the airports.
We’re in some negotiations right now to start
to open a few of them around, and hopefully
we’ll sign off on some of them very shortly.
Q: You’re busy at Miami Subs.
So much going on, and having the best
time. You want to hear a great story? I’ve got
just a quick story. My kids and grandkids
talking to their friends about their
father/grandfather in Rolling Stone magazine,
shaking hands with Pitbull, asking, “Is your
father hanging with Pitbull?” They think they
have the coolest grandfather or the coolest
father in the world, which is all great stuff.
It’s really fun for me.
As a matter of fact, we went to Jones
Beach the other night, in New York, and took
the kids backstage to hang with Pitbull right
before his performance. It’s been a trip, it’s
been a great experience and he’s a great partner to have.
Q: That’s great to hear, since a lot of
those celebrity partnerships aren’t actually productive.
Right—because they’re not partnerships.
They’re pitchmen. He’s not doing that. You’ll
never see him with a hamburger in his hand
telling you how good our hamburgers are. By
the way, our hamburgers were in the top 10
of the best hamburgers just voted recently by
one of the major networks.
Q: I wanted to ask you about some of
your most popular items. I’m sure your
hamburgers are up there.
They are right up there, certainly within
the top two or three. The best hamburgers in
the country because they’re fresh. They’re
not frozen. They’re Angus steak burgers,
34
New Miami Subs Grill:
From Foreclosure to Global Success
© Design created by Kobi Karp Architecture and
Interior Design, Inc. (KKAID)
which have a phenomenal taste. And you
make them your own way. You build your
own. You tell us what you want, and we’ll
give it to you.
We’ve got the Latin, the Havana one; we
have a Rodeo one. We have the chipotle one.
So we’ve got everything for your tastes. The
Spanish expression, mas es mas, more is
more, that’s really what we’re all about: variety. You can come into our restaurants every
day for a month and never eat the same thing
twice. And the quality’s very good.
Q: You have plenty of great new items,
but what about your classic menu items?
They still do as well, they really do. It’s
just a matter of our volume has picked up;
our sales have increased. Our comps year
over year have increased dramatically, which
is very exciting for us. What we’ve really
seen is our sales increase when a store goes
into a renovation from the minimum—and I
mean minimum—of 20 percent to 200 percent in sales.
It is incredible what it means to do the
renovations—new bathrooms, new everything. It is terrific, and our public, our customer, wanted that, and it really shows by
the frequency of their visits that that’s what
they want. That’s what we’re giving them,
and it’s very important.
Q: Miami Subs has a lot of projects going
on, but what can we expect within the
next few years?
An exciting, fun place for you to visit.
Listening to great music. Having great food
in a great atmosphere. When you see the
interior of these stores, they are beautiful.
Within the next couple of months, they’re
going to be opening up just about every
place.
You’re going to have a great experience
for an inexpensive price. Our average sale is
about $10 a ticket. At the same time, you’re
going to have the choice if you want Dom
Pérignon…Do you know the story about
Madonna? After Madonna used to do her
SEPTEMBER 2013 | sunbeltfoodservice.com
shows, late at night, she’d be passing by a
Miami Subs drive-thru and she’d have the
top down in the limo and order a bottle of
Dom Pérignon to go with her chicken wings.
She loved our chicken wings.
That became a major thing, and the
reason (we sell) Dom Pérignon is because
the founder of Miami Subs felt the best name
in champagne was Dom Pérignon, and the
best quality food was at Miami Subs. So he
put together this combination for $109.99—
a bottle of Dom Pérignon and a dozen wings
to go. And Madonna used to come after all
of her shows, and she would order it, and
they would hand it to her through the top of
the limo. She’d be drinking her champagne
and eating her wings.
I suspect we’re not going to sell a great
deal of the champagne, but it’s a great thing,
and it’s fun for us to have. And many people
who remember Miami Subs way back when
remember the Dom Pérignon.
Q: Anything you’d like to add?
Some folks have asked me to write a book
about rebranding. There’s a lot of satisfaction
in making this brand, which was once a
beacon in the night—that’s the way people
liked to refer to us because it was always lit
up with our colors at nighttime—to resurrect
something that everybody put out as being
dead and making that come to life again with
this great group of talent that I’ve been able
to put together. The satisfaction that I’m
getting from having done this is sensational.
I just hope that everybody that loved the
brand and the new kids that are coming
around that love jazz—that’s a revitalization
in itself. The jazz clubs that are around town,
they’re terrific. You see a whole new genre of
people coming in. We’re interested in them
tasting our foods as well. That kind of music
is music that I’ve always loved. Combining
jazz and rap, it’s a little bit of something for
everyone. So that’s what we hope to give
everybody, and we hope everybody will
come visit us.
New Miami Subs Grill is staging a major comeback. Part of that comeback is “Mr. 305,”
Armando Christian “Pitbull” Pérez, the rapper whose nickname reflects the area code of his
hometown of Miami. Today, Pitbull is more regularly referred to as Mr. Worldwide, but he got
his start in south Florida, just like the restaurant chain in which he is now an equity partner.
The first Miami Subs opened in 1988 and experienced great success in the early ’90s, but
it didn’t stay that way. After a period of too-incredible growth, financial troubles started, and
as the brand aged and times changed, Miami
Subs started losing customers. Richard Chwatt,
along with investment firm Jericho State
Capital Corp., got involved, and eventually
Chwatt took over the company as CEO and
replaced the entire management team. To
denote the turnaround, “new” and “grill” were
added to the name in 2010.
It was November 2012 when Pitbull became
an equity partner, not a pitchman, for The New
Miami Subs Grill.
Pitbull has had his share of sponsorship
deals—endorsing products ranging from Bud Pitbull seals the deal with New Miami
Subs Grill CEO Richard Chwatt.
Lite to Dr Pepper as well as investing in lowcalorie Voli vodka—but his relationship with New Miami Subs Grill is a little different.
“You’ll never see him with a hamburger in his hand telling you how good our hamburgers
are,” Chwatt says.
But the international music star does sit on the restaurant’s board and plans to head
franchise efforts in Latin America in addition to a new, larger footprint concept, Oh! Miami
Grill (OMG!), which is set to launch in airports in the future. It’s clear that with Mr. Worldwide,
Miami Subs has its sights on global expansion.
At the launch party last year, both Pitbull and Chwatt emphasized that the partnership is
a melding of two iconic brands, with mutual success on the horizon for both.
Back when Chwatt came on board, knowing the brand was in trouble, he told franchisees,
“You either renovate, you relocate or you terminate.”
Since then, New Miami Subs Grill has seen strong growth—there are about 35 locations
currently open—and has plans for global expansion within the next few years.
The restaurants serve up signature Philly cheesesteaks, burgers that were voted number one
in a local contest and wings (famously ordered by entertainer Madonna) as well as breakfast.
Two new menus also are being rolled out: a Latin fusion menu and a heart-healthy menu
featuring oatmeal-based dishes.
Also on the menu are beer, wine and champagne (Dom Pérignon). Originally put in place
by the founder, Konstantinos Boulis, Dom Pérignon probably won’t sell in large quantities,
according to Chwatt, but it’s another example of Miami Subs staying true to the “old brand”
while bringing extensive changes to its décor and atmosphere.
In a recent interview with Sunbelt Foodservice Magazine staff writer Heather Blount, Chwatt
talked about what’s coming for the company’s fans.
Q: How did you get started with New Miami Subs Grill?
Being a New Yorker and vacationing in Florida, of course we knew the brand. We knew
the iconic nature of the name; we also knew that the food was terrific. (But) we also recognized that the brand was getting older. It was also tired, I guess, and somebody came to us
with an idea of how they could resurrect the brand, so our business was, and still is, financing
companies that we think have a future, investing in them and seeing if they can make a
turnabout.
This one, we felt, wasn’t going to do it.
I fell in love with it during the time of our investment, but it didn’t follow the model that
purportedly the folks that had borrowed the money from us had indicated that they were
going to do with the brand, so we stepped in and replaced the management. I took over as
CEO. My partner, Bob Vogel, who is an attorney and who owned a great number of Burger
Kings up north (he subsequently turned them over to his son) also became involved.
I took over the management and operations and brought in many new, young faces but I
SEPTEMBER 2013 | sunbeltfoodservice.com
31
also brought back some of the folks that
hadn’t been here for a while, who had left for
one reason or another. I brought them back
in because we wanted to keep touch with the
old brand and also show the changes that we
were going to be making to it by bringing it
into today’s world.
That’s how and why I took it over—
because we foreclosed on all of them and
wound up taking over the company and set
about to change and rebrand the once-iconic
chain of stores in south Florida.
Q: Sounds like you came in and saved
the day.
Yeah, I guess we did, but you know what?
The brand was so good. And then, fortuitously, the new relationship came about
with Armando Christian Perez—better
known as Pitbull. Of course, I was too old to
know who he was, but he knew who we
were because as a youngster growing up in
Florida, that was his place of choice to have
his lunches and write his music.
Then one day, he wanted to own a Miami
Subs or for that matter all of Miami Subs. We
spent the better part of a year negotiating.
Not where he’d become a pitchman or a
salesman for us but actually a board member.
He’s a very bright young man, known as
Mr. 305—of course, Miami’s area code—
Mr. Worldwide, pronounced “Worl’wide,”
without a “d,” so it’s Mr. Worl’wide.
He sits on our board and he has major
input because he’s an aspiring entrepreneur;
very, very bright, knows where he thinks the
brand ought to be going. He rebranded his
life and his world as a singer. He grew up as
a street kid and became a great-looking,
sophisticated singer, entertainer, examplesetter…He’s a guy that would go and create
these charter schools for kids that needed
them in Miami. He had this whole flair for
charities, which was our preoccupation
as well.
If you look at him on social media, he’s
got literally tens of millions of followers on
his Facebook page, probably 30 million; 10
million on (Twitter). All these folks who
became aware of his involvement and his
ownership of Miami Subs…everybody wants
to be our partner today.
Now we’ve got the great, iconic name, but
we have gone through changes. When I took
over the stewardship of this great chain, the
first thing I did was go to the franchisees,
who had been around for years and years
and years, and said to them—it became my
mantra that—“You either renovate, you relocate or you terminate.” I really meant that.
We needed to come up; we were now a very
sexy brand in great demand that everybody
wanted to be part of, but you couldn’t have
old, tired restaurants.
We needed to close a number of them in
order for us to maintain the new look and the
new design. We hired a famous architect who
did a new design for us, which really incorporated some of our old look and a whole
new brand look, superimposed upon the
old arches.
Q: How many were closed?
Well, I closed some of them, but they had
started to close when Nathan’s was in control
of the brand, when they tried to co-brand
the hot dogs together with Miami Subs’
vast array (of menu items). They tried to
put those two together, but it just didn’t
work out.
The real estate was very valuable, so
when we took over the brand, I guess about
2010, it must have been 30-some odd restaurants. Today, we have about 250 under contract worldwide, and we’re operating about
35-38 now with seven under construction.
The growth has just been spectacular. We
now are going through a very thorough
vetting process to make sure that we find
the right partners worldwide to carry our
brand…to protect the brand.
Typically, we’re creating area development agreements with folks who have other
concepts that don’t compete with ours. The
synergies created by the two types of operations working as one with one overhead
becomes very lucrative, very profitable. It
gives us comfort to know that we’re dealing
with the right people, who are successful in
our industry.
Q: What are the hottest international
markets for Miami Subs?
New Zealand, Australia are very hot
markets. China’s going to be a hot market for
us; we’re not there yet. We’re still looking for
the right partners.
Pitbull’s relationships are in Latin
America, and part of our agreement when he
bought into our company is that he would
have the rights to develop Latin America.
He’s now putting his team together, and we
expect that Latin America’s going to have the
hottest markets for us. Miami and South
America are aligned at the hips right now,
and there’s a great deal of synergy between
the two. Tastes of foods, although they
vary throughout South America, are really
very similar.
We just opened up our first restaurant in
Guyana, which, although it is not a Spanishspeaking country, is in Latin America. So
that’s really the hot market for us.
© Design created by Kobi Karp Architecture and Interior Design, Inc. (KKAID)
32
SEPTEMBER 2013 | sunbeltfoodservice.com
As soon as the new design, which is
scheduled to go online within the next couple of months, is ready, then we can really
start to enter that marketplace in Latin
America under his tutelage and involvement.
You asked about hot spots. What’s hot for
us? What are we looking to do? Where would
we like to be?
Airports, to us, are very important—airports throughout Latin America. Our feeling
is that the airports are really big gateways to
the inner cities, and once you get off the airplane and you pass one of our concepts,
you’re going to look for us and have a bite to
eat there. You’re going to look for us when
you get into town. So that becomes very
important to us.
Our new interior look (reflects)
Pitbull—we’ve got his
music playing, his
videos showing.
The look
is a very hot
look, a very sexy look. The atmosphere, as
he says, is a combination of great food, great
music and a great atmosphere in a sexy kind
of a way. For a quick-service restaurant to
have all of those qualities and music is really
different.
Our challenge has always been to get
folks who come into the restaurant to sit
down and spend some time with us, so
we’ve designed it to look like that and to feel
like that. We’re not interested in getting you
in and out in one minute or two minutes or
seeing how quickly we can get you out. We’d
like you to spend time there.
It’s that customer comfort and caring and
a family way…kids love his music, and the
older generation, who we look towards,
we’re also going to be playing jazz music
within. It’s a whole combination of things
we’re looking at, and not losing touch with
our link to the past, which has been a great
link. People have a love for it.
We’re going back into Dallas, and people
are saying, “We loved Miami Subs. Where
have you been? We’re so glad you’re coming
back.” We’re getting that from all over.
Q: That’s a good sign—sometimes brands
just don’t have that cult following.
Yes, exactly. But we’ve always done well
in those markets, so we’re going to those
markets that we know the history, how well
we’ve done in those markets. We know New
York will be a next market for us to get
involved, as well as California. We’ve been
there, so we know what volumes we were
able to do then. Now, we have our new
product line and our Latin fusion menu and
our heart-healthy menu, and with Pitbull’s
involvement, it’s going to be terrific.
Q: What are the biggest changes to the
menu?
Well, a couple of things (are happening).
We have a heart-healthy menu, which is a
low-calorie menu. One of the things we will
be implementing shortly is putting calorie
counts on our menus that you’ll really be
able to see.
We’ve signed on with a nutrition company who’s viewed as the specialist when it comes to
heart-healthy diets.
It will analyze our
products and give us
a seal on our items that
can be labeled heart-healthy. This menu
consists of oatmeal products—which are delicious—with flax seed and goji berries and
fresh fruit; great salads, egg white omelets for
our breakfast menus.
I’m not sure how many people are going
to (order these items) now, but our customer
really wants to know, do we have it available? Whether they’re going to eat it right
now or not eat it right now, they want to
know it’s available to them, and that’s playing an important role in it as well.
In addition, we’ve got a Latin fusion
menu that Pitbull helped us select. It’s a
menu that is really down-home living; the
Latin community has savored it and worked
with us…We’re now looking at introducing
Cuba Libre, perhaps, into our beverages,
which is a low-alcohol content (beverage)
with rum and Coke.
We’ve got the heart-healthy menu coming
in. We’ve got the Latin fusion menu, which
has been a great success for us. Beer, wine
and Dom Pérignon Champagne are going to
be featured in the newer restaurants that are
now opening.
We’re really just like a Greek diner, I
guess. It’s like a Greek diner dressed like a
fast-casual restaurant. We went to plate service on china for our platters. Our beer and
wine will be served in mugs and wine
glasses. There are no garbage cans (in the
dining area) in the newer stores that are now
opening… We will clear the table and clean
the table. But no tip is required.
We’re just a step above where we used to
be, and we’ll continue to take that step
towards the fast casual without having full
wait service. You’ll order it at the counter and
we’ll serve you the food.
At many airports, you can sit at a table,
not even at a restaurant, and you can order
on your credit card…These are things we’re
looking to do for the future as well.
Q: Can you explain the service model?
The only thing we don’t do is have waitstaff taking your order at the table. We
haven’t done that yet. You can be ordering
from the table at some point when we’re able
to do it electronically; you’ll be able to order
remotely and pay with your credit card at the
table. That’s not today, but it’s getting closer
and closer. We’re looking into it.
Including Hawaii, I think, there are nine
countries outside of the States that are now
setting up to develop Miami Subs. In addition, we’re growing at airports with our
newest concept, which is OMG!, which is
SEPTEMBER 2013 | sunbeltfoodservice.com
33
also brought back some of the folks that
hadn’t been here for a while, who had left for
one reason or another. I brought them back
in because we wanted to keep touch with the
old brand and also show the changes that we
were going to be making to it by bringing it
into today’s world.
That’s how and why I took it over—
because we foreclosed on all of them and
wound up taking over the company and set
about to change and rebrand the once-iconic
chain of stores in south Florida.
Q: Sounds like you came in and saved
the day.
Yeah, I guess we did, but you know what?
The brand was so good. And then, fortuitously, the new relationship came about
with Armando Christian Perez—better
known as Pitbull. Of course, I was too old to
know who he was, but he knew who we
were because as a youngster growing up in
Florida, that was his place of choice to have
his lunches and write his music.
Then one day, he wanted to own a Miami
Subs or for that matter all of Miami Subs. We
spent the better part of a year negotiating.
Not where he’d become a pitchman or a
salesman for us but actually a board member.
He’s a very bright young man, known as
Mr. 305—of course, Miami’s area code—
Mr. Worldwide, pronounced “Worl’wide,”
without a “d,” so it’s Mr. Worl’wide.
He sits on our board and he has major
input because he’s an aspiring entrepreneur;
very, very bright, knows where he thinks the
brand ought to be going. He rebranded his
life and his world as a singer. He grew up as
a street kid and became a great-looking,
sophisticated singer, entertainer, examplesetter…He’s a guy that would go and create
these charter schools for kids that needed
them in Miami. He had this whole flair for
charities, which was our preoccupation
as well.
If you look at him on social media, he’s
got literally tens of millions of followers on
his Facebook page, probably 30 million; 10
million on (Twitter). All these folks who
became aware of his involvement and his
ownership of Miami Subs…everybody wants
to be our partner today.
Now we’ve got the great, iconic name, but
we have gone through changes. When I took
over the stewardship of this great chain, the
first thing I did was go to the franchisees,
who had been around for years and years
and years, and said to them—it became my
mantra that—“You either renovate, you relocate or you terminate.” I really meant that.
We needed to come up; we were now a very
sexy brand in great demand that everybody
wanted to be part of, but you couldn’t have
old, tired restaurants.
We needed to close a number of them in
order for us to maintain the new look and the
new design. We hired a famous architect who
did a new design for us, which really incorporated some of our old look and a whole
new brand look, superimposed upon the
old arches.
Q: How many were closed?
Well, I closed some of them, but they had
started to close when Nathan’s was in control
of the brand, when they tried to co-brand
the hot dogs together with Miami Subs’
vast array (of menu items). They tried to
put those two together, but it just didn’t
work out.
The real estate was very valuable, so
when we took over the brand, I guess about
2010, it must have been 30-some odd restaurants. Today, we have about 250 under contract worldwide, and we’re operating about
35-38 now with seven under construction.
The growth has just been spectacular. We
now are going through a very thorough
vetting process to make sure that we find
the right partners worldwide to carry our
brand…to protect the brand.
Typically, we’re creating area development agreements with folks who have other
concepts that don’t compete with ours. The
synergies created by the two types of operations working as one with one overhead
becomes very lucrative, very profitable. It
gives us comfort to know that we’re dealing
with the right people, who are successful in
our industry.
Q: What are the hottest international
markets for Miami Subs?
New Zealand, Australia are very hot
markets. China’s going to be a hot market for
us; we’re not there yet. We’re still looking for
the right partners.
Pitbull’s relationships are in Latin
America, and part of our agreement when he
bought into our company is that he would
have the rights to develop Latin America.
He’s now putting his team together, and we
expect that Latin America’s going to have the
hottest markets for us. Miami and South
America are aligned at the hips right now,
and there’s a great deal of synergy between
the two. Tastes of foods, although they
vary throughout South America, are really
very similar.
We just opened up our first restaurant in
Guyana, which, although it is not a Spanishspeaking country, is in Latin America. So
that’s really the hot market for us.
© Design created by Kobi Karp Architecture and Interior Design, Inc. (KKAID)
32
SEPTEMBER 2013 | sunbeltfoodservice.com
As soon as the new design, which is
scheduled to go online within the next couple of months, is ready, then we can really
start to enter that marketplace in Latin
America under his tutelage and involvement.
You asked about hot spots. What’s hot for
us? What are we looking to do? Where would
we like to be?
Airports, to us, are very important—airports throughout Latin America. Our feeling
is that the airports are really big gateways to
the inner cities, and once you get off the airplane and you pass one of our concepts,
you’re going to look for us and have a bite to
eat there. You’re going to look for us when
you get into town. So that becomes very
important to us.
Our new interior look (reflects)
Pitbull—we’ve got his
music playing, his
videos showing.
The look
is a very hot
look, a very sexy look. The atmosphere, as
he says, is a combination of great food, great
music and a great atmosphere in a sexy kind
of a way. For a quick-service restaurant to
have all of those qualities and music is really
different.
Our challenge has always been to get
folks who come into the restaurant to sit
down and spend some time with us, so
we’ve designed it to look like that and to feel
like that. We’re not interested in getting you
in and out in one minute or two minutes or
seeing how quickly we can get you out. We’d
like you to spend time there.
It’s that customer comfort and caring and
a family way…kids love his music, and the
older generation, who we look towards,
we’re also going to be playing jazz music
within. It’s a whole combination of things
we’re looking at, and not losing touch with
our link to the past, which has been a great
link. People have a love for it.
We’re going back into Dallas, and people
are saying, “We loved Miami Subs. Where
have you been? We’re so glad you’re coming
back.” We’re getting that from all over.
Q: That’s a good sign—sometimes brands
just don’t have that cult following.
Yes, exactly. But we’ve always done well
in those markets, so we’re going to those
markets that we know the history, how well
we’ve done in those markets. We know New
York will be a next market for us to get
involved, as well as California. We’ve been
there, so we know what volumes we were
able to do then. Now, we have our new
product line and our Latin fusion menu and
our heart-healthy menu, and with Pitbull’s
involvement, it’s going to be terrific.
Q: What are the biggest changes to the
menu?
Well, a couple of things (are happening).
We have a heart-healthy menu, which is a
low-calorie menu. One of the things we will
be implementing shortly is putting calorie
counts on our menus that you’ll really be
able to see.
We’ve signed on with a nutrition company who’s viewed as the specialist when it comes to
heart-healthy diets.
It will analyze our
products and give us
a seal on our items that
can be labeled heart-healthy. This menu
consists of oatmeal products—which are delicious—with flax seed and goji berries and
fresh fruit; great salads, egg white omelets for
our breakfast menus.
I’m not sure how many people are going
to (order these items) now, but our customer
really wants to know, do we have it available? Whether they’re going to eat it right
now or not eat it right now, they want to
know it’s available to them, and that’s playing an important role in it as well.
In addition, we’ve got a Latin fusion
menu that Pitbull helped us select. It’s a
menu that is really down-home living; the
Latin community has savored it and worked
with us…We’re now looking at introducing
Cuba Libre, perhaps, into our beverages,
which is a low-alcohol content (beverage)
with rum and Coke.
We’ve got the heart-healthy menu coming
in. We’ve got the Latin fusion menu, which
has been a great success for us. Beer, wine
and Dom Pérignon Champagne are going to
be featured in the newer restaurants that are
now opening.
We’re really just like a Greek diner, I
guess. It’s like a Greek diner dressed like a
fast-casual restaurant. We went to plate service on china for our platters. Our beer and
wine will be served in mugs and wine
glasses. There are no garbage cans (in the
dining area) in the newer stores that are now
opening… We will clear the table and clean
the table. But no tip is required.
We’re just a step above where we used to
be, and we’ll continue to take that step
towards the fast casual without having full
wait service. You’ll order it at the counter and
we’ll serve you the food.
At many airports, you can sit at a table,
not even at a restaurant, and you can order
on your credit card…These are things we’re
looking to do for the future as well.
Q: Can you explain the service model?
The only thing we don’t do is have waitstaff taking your order at the table. We
haven’t done that yet. You can be ordering
from the table at some point when we’re able
to do it electronically; you’ll be able to order
remotely and pay with your credit card at the
table. That’s not today, but it’s getting closer
and closer. We’re looking into it.
Including Hawaii, I think, there are nine
countries outside of the States that are now
setting up to develop Miami Subs. In addition, we’re growing at airports with our
newest concept, which is OMG!, which is
SEPTEMBER 2013 | sunbeltfoodservice.com
33
Oh! Miami Grill. That’s a product of Pitbull’s
desire to create a larger footprint with a full
bar and grill with great music playing
throughout—jazz is now coming into it as
well—where it’s more of a bistro-type menu.
Same great food, same great products…and
in a much larger footprint, and that’s primarily for the airports. It’s a great look.
In all of the restaurants, you’re going to
find big murals, 12-foot murals, really showing South Beach and the old-looking hotels
in a very modern setting, a real art-deco type
of setting with LED lighting behind it. Really
dynamite looking. It’s very attractive, with
images of Pitbull on it as well. Great-looking
art deco type of a look.
Q: So you’re working on a new concept
as well?
This is a new concept. It’s a larger footprint. It’s a place that we’re going to have the
champagne, have the full bar available, primarily its openings will be at the airports.
We’re in some negotiations right now to start
to open a few of them around, and hopefully
we’ll sign off on some of them very shortly.
Q: You’re busy at Miami Subs.
So much going on, and having the best
time. You want to hear a great story? I’ve got
just a quick story. My kids and grandkids
talking to their friends about their
father/grandfather in Rolling Stone magazine,
shaking hands with Pitbull, asking, “Is your
father hanging with Pitbull?” They think they
have the coolest grandfather or the coolest
father in the world, which is all great stuff.
It’s really fun for me.
As a matter of fact, we went to Jones
Beach the other night, in New York, and took
the kids backstage to hang with Pitbull right
before his performance. It’s been a trip, it’s
been a great experience and he’s a great partner to have.
Q: That’s great to hear, since a lot of
those celebrity partnerships aren’t actually productive.
Right—because they’re not partnerships.
They’re pitchmen. He’s not doing that. You’ll
never see him with a hamburger in his hand
telling you how good our hamburgers are. By
the way, our hamburgers were in the top 10
of the best hamburgers just voted recently by
one of the major networks.
Q: I wanted to ask you about some of
your most popular items. I’m sure your
hamburgers are up there.
They are right up there, certainly within
the top two or three. The best hamburgers in
the country because they’re fresh. They’re
not frozen. They’re Angus steak burgers,
34
New Miami Subs Grill:
From Foreclosure to Global Success
© Design created by Kobi Karp Architecture and
Interior Design, Inc. (KKAID)
which have a phenomenal taste. And you
make them your own way. You build your
own. You tell us what you want, and we’ll
give it to you.
We’ve got the Latin, the Havana one; we
have a Rodeo one. We have the chipotle one.
So we’ve got everything for your tastes. The
Spanish expression, mas es mas, more is
more, that’s really what we’re all about: variety. You can come into our restaurants every
day for a month and never eat the same thing
twice. And the quality’s very good.
Q: You have plenty of great new items,
but what about your classic menu items?
They still do as well, they really do. It’s
just a matter of our volume has picked up;
our sales have increased. Our comps year
over year have increased dramatically, which
is very exciting for us. What we’ve really
seen is our sales increase when a store goes
into a renovation from the minimum—and I
mean minimum—of 20 percent to 200 percent in sales.
It is incredible what it means to do the
renovations—new bathrooms, new everything. It is terrific, and our public, our customer, wanted that, and it really shows by
the frequency of their visits that that’s what
they want. That’s what we’re giving them,
and it’s very important.
Q: Miami Subs has a lot of projects going
on, but what can we expect within the
next few years?
An exciting, fun place for you to visit.
Listening to great music. Having great food
in a great atmosphere. When you see the
interior of these stores, they are beautiful.
Within the next couple of months, they’re
going to be opening up just about every
place.
You’re going to have a great experience
for an inexpensive price. Our average sale is
about $10 a ticket. At the same time, you’re
going to have the choice if you want Dom
Pérignon…Do you know the story about
Madonna? After Madonna used to do her
SEPTEMBER 2013 | sunbeltfoodservice.com
shows, late at night, she’d be passing by a
Miami Subs drive-thru and she’d have the
top down in the limo and order a bottle of
Dom Pérignon to go with her chicken wings.
She loved our chicken wings.
That became a major thing, and the
reason (we sell) Dom Pérignon is because
the founder of Miami Subs felt the best name
in champagne was Dom Pérignon, and the
best quality food was at Miami Subs. So he
put together this combination for $109.99—
a bottle of Dom Pérignon and a dozen wings
to go. And Madonna used to come after all
of her shows, and she would order it, and
they would hand it to her through the top of
the limo. She’d be drinking her champagne
and eating her wings.
I suspect we’re not going to sell a great
deal of the champagne, but it’s a great thing,
and it’s fun for us to have. And many people
who remember Miami Subs way back when
remember the Dom Pérignon.
Q: Anything you’d like to add?
Some folks have asked me to write a book
about rebranding. There’s a lot of satisfaction
in making this brand, which was once a
beacon in the night—that’s the way people
liked to refer to us because it was always lit
up with our colors at nighttime—to resurrect
something that everybody put out as being
dead and making that come to life again with
this great group of talent that I’ve been able
to put together. The satisfaction that I’m
getting from having done this is sensational.
I just hope that everybody that loved the
brand and the new kids that are coming
around that love jazz—that’s a revitalization
in itself. The jazz clubs that are around town,
they’re terrific. You see a whole new genre of
people coming in. We’re interested in them
tasting our foods as well. That kind of music
is music that I’ve always loved. Combining
jazz and rap, it’s a little bit of something for
everyone. So that’s what we hope to give
everybody, and we hope everybody will
come visit us.
New Miami Subs Grill is staging a major comeback. Part of that comeback is “Mr. 305,”
Armando Christian “Pitbull” Pérez, the rapper whose nickname reflects the area code of his
hometown of Miami. Today, Pitbull is more regularly referred to as Mr. Worldwide, but he got
his start in south Florida, just like the restaurant chain in which he is now an equity partner.
The first Miami Subs opened in 1988 and experienced great success in the early ’90s, but
it didn’t stay that way. After a period of too-incredible growth, financial troubles started, and
as the brand aged and times changed, Miami
Subs started losing customers. Richard Chwatt,
along with investment firm Jericho State
Capital Corp., got involved, and eventually
Chwatt took over the company as CEO and
replaced the entire management team. To
denote the turnaround, “new” and “grill” were
added to the name in 2010.
It was November 2012 when Pitbull became
an equity partner, not a pitchman, for The New
Miami Subs Grill.
Pitbull has had his share of sponsorship
deals—endorsing products ranging from Bud Pitbull seals the deal with New Miami
Subs Grill CEO Richard Chwatt.
Lite to Dr Pepper as well as investing in lowcalorie Voli vodka—but his relationship with New Miami Subs Grill is a little different.
“You’ll never see him with a hamburger in his hand telling you how good our hamburgers
are,” Chwatt says.
But the international music star does sit on the restaurant’s board and plans to head
franchise efforts in Latin America in addition to a new, larger footprint concept, Oh! Miami
Grill (OMG!), which is set to launch in airports in the future. It’s clear that with Mr. Worldwide,
Miami Subs has its sights on global expansion.
At the launch party last year, both Pitbull and Chwatt emphasized that the partnership is
a melding of two iconic brands, with mutual success on the horizon for both.
Back when Chwatt came on board, knowing the brand was in trouble, he told franchisees,
“You either renovate, you relocate or you terminate.”
Since then, New Miami Subs Grill has seen strong growth—there are about 35 locations
currently open—and has plans for global expansion within the next few years.
The restaurants serve up signature Philly cheesesteaks, burgers that were voted number one
in a local contest and wings (famously ordered by entertainer Madonna) as well as breakfast.
Two new menus also are being rolled out: a Latin fusion menu and a heart-healthy menu
featuring oatmeal-based dishes.
Also on the menu are beer, wine and champagne (Dom Pérignon). Originally put in place
by the founder, Konstantinos Boulis, Dom Pérignon probably won’t sell in large quantities,
according to Chwatt, but it’s another example of Miami Subs staying true to the “old brand”
while bringing extensive changes to its décor and atmosphere.
In a recent interview with Sunbelt Foodservice Magazine staff writer Heather Blount, Chwatt
talked about what’s coming for the company’s fans.
Q: How did you get started with New Miami Subs Grill?
Being a New Yorker and vacationing in Florida, of course we knew the brand. We knew
the iconic nature of the name; we also knew that the food was terrific. (But) we also recognized that the brand was getting older. It was also tired, I guess, and somebody came to us
with an idea of how they could resurrect the brand, so our business was, and still is, financing
companies that we think have a future, investing in them and seeing if they can make a
turnabout.
This one, we felt, wasn’t going to do it.
I fell in love with it during the time of our investment, but it didn’t follow the model that
purportedly the folks that had borrowed the money from us had indicated that they were
going to do with the brand, so we stepped in and replaced the management. I took over as
CEO. My partner, Bob Vogel, who is an attorney and who owned a great number of Burger
Kings up north (he subsequently turned them over to his son) also became involved.
I took over the management and operations and brought in many new, young faces but I
SEPTEMBER 2013 | sunbeltfoodservice.com
31