The creation of a new RigaTony's

2011-10-13T11:29:00.000-07:00

Greetings Friends,
I'm getting back to you regarding a promise I made earlier this summer. I told you that Chef Hutson and I were working on perfecting a homemade cannoli and I would get back to you sometime later this summer. Well summer ends tomorrow and as promised here is my cannoli announcement, once again proving that I am a man of my word (albeit barely). Cannolis have never been on our menu and I have been scolded for this glaring omission since we opened our doors in 1994. I've never been a fan of them as I've had so many average to poor ones over the years, but after years of pressure, and an inspirational trip to Mike's Pastry in Boston we went to work sampling different shell and filling recipes and procedures over the last couple of months. I know... tough work, but someone has to do it!

Its interesting, but I discover again and again that the best recipes are not necessarily complicated but just require using high quality ingredients, careful technique and fresh preparation. I think you will like the results of our labor. So, I would like to invite you to come in anytime in the next three weeks for a complimentary sample of our cannoli. Every few days Chef Hutson will be sampling a new variety; some traditional and some a little off the wall, so it should be fun. These are not on the menu yet and only available to my email friends so as usual you have memorize and quote a code phrase to identify yourself as a privileged cannoli taster.
Your secret phrase is; Mike is cool. No - just kidding. Even I'm sick of that.
The real phrase is; That's the way the Cannoli crumbles. Say that phrase and every person in your party will be treated to a sample sized cannoli. We will be sampling these through October 13th. Again, extra credit and face time on the web site for originality when you work the phrase into a conversation with a server or manager. Have fun and hope you enjoy! Oh - and here's a link to a little video of a tasting we did along the way. Hope to see you soon and please feel free to give me some feedback on your experience. Mike

Perfect Cannoli Video

End of Summer update

2011-08-26T18:27:00.000-07:00

Hello Friends,
Just a quick update from my last Email.

First of all, a warm welcome to all the new RigaTony's fans who have signed up over the past several weeks! I will do my best to make these infrequent emails informative and delicious.

In my last email I offered a challenge to you for a chance to be Guest Tasters in our next Wine Dinner Development Meeting. The challenge was to write to me and make your case as to why you are the most qualified person to be a food/wine taster. This is a chance to be locked in a room for several hours with Mike & Chrissy, Chef Hutson and our wine vendor, and critique the many food courses and countless wine varietals that will ultimately comprise our next Wine Dinner. It came down to two finalists, both of whom made compelling cases for different reasons. One begged to be chosen in the name of her Italian grandmother, saying that being chosen would finally give Grandma something to be proud of her for. The other is a long time customer who is attempting to intimidate me with his private collection of 300 wines, regular visits to Napa and 20+ years of culinary pursuits in his home kitchen. In the end I couldn't say no to either one of them so congrats to both Jim and Jennifer who have been awarded the title of Guest Tasters at our next development meeing. Pictures of the event will be forthcoming. (The actual wine dinner is scheduled for Monday September 12th, and soon we'll send out a detailed announcement.)

As you may remember I offered all of you a scoop of our cool delicious Spumoni Ice Cream if you said "Mike is Cool" when you visited us earlier in the summer. The response? Well, some of our servers have developed carpel tunnel symptoms from scooping spumoni all summer. Some of you think I'm so cool that you were compelled to come in several times! I also offered "extra points" for anyone who could work "Mike is Cool" into a memorable conversation. The extra points would include a video of your conversation posted on our web site. Well the operative word is "memorable" and under that criteria Bob Auffert wins hands down. It is admittedly a little off-color but hilariously delivered, so I will risk any negative comments and post away! Congratulations Bob!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xboyf6LJkjQ

Oh and regarding my pledge to develop a delicious cannoli to add to our menu. I am pleased to announce that Chef Hutson has nailed it. He has perfected a delicious shell and developed various exotic fillings and the results are to die for. All that remains is to expand the recipes and our production, but I predict a surprise for all of you in a few days, so keep your eye on your email boxes.

Thanks for a great summer and I'll be in touch soon.

Mike Lopercio

Summer arrives with a blast.

2011-06-22T18:25:00.000-07:00

Hello Friends,

Happy Summer! It always amazes me that the thermometer has such an uncanny ability to read a calendar. May was in the comfortable 90's, early June teased us with some low 100's and then WHAM ..... I open my front door on June 21st to a familiar blast furnace and say, "Oh yeah, Summer... I remember you".

We promise to keep you cool here at RigaTony's all summer long. Bookmark this link and it will bring you to the specials page of our website; There you'll find our most current lunch and dinner specials, a description of our very popular Pick A Pasta early bird dinners, and this months Family Take-Out Dinner Specials. We package most of our menu items for take-out, and put together nice family dinners often combining pastas with a pizza, all of which include our antipasto salad and dessert. Its easy to order ahead by phone while browsing the menu on our website. Give us 25 minutes and we'll have it packaged up and ready for you to swing in on your way home.

Our own summer To-Do list;

• Chef Hutson is working on the perfect cannoli. I have resisted putting cannolis on the menu for 15 years but the pressure from you is relentless! I will update you with our pursuit of the perfect cannoli with pictures and video as the summer progresses.

• Chrissy is in patio survival mode tending and bracing her patio garden for 10 weeks of scorching heat. She has a huge variety of plants including tomatoes, peppers, eggplant and to be honest lots of things I don't recognize, and she is determined to coax them into surviving the summer.

• Dan is planning out the next couple of wine dinners working with Chef Hutson on seasonal menus and pairing them with wines. Gee... poor Dan has so much tasting and sipping ahead of him. He could use a helper so if you are interested write me a brief email telling me why you're uniquely qualified to be Dan's wine dinner planning assistant.If selected you'll be invited to participate in a food tasting & wine pairing meeting. Send your "wine application" here.

• Jenny's project is to build staff. Most of our serving staff has been with us for years, but we try to fill any vacancies during the summer when we have more time to coach and train so we're razor sharp by the holidays. Jenny is also the self anointed Italian Princess on our Facebook page. "Like" us to experience a different kind of RigaTony's connection.

• Me? I have just the usual business stuff to do except that I am planning a trip to Alaska for Chrissy and myself in August. Some of you may know Vicky who works with us all winter long, and then migrates to Alaska during the summer to manage a restaurant in a resort at Denali National Park. Now that will be cool!

Speaking of cool, that's what I promised you, so keep reading and I'll deliver. We prepare some incredible desserts from scratch, but because of this our excellent spumoni ice cream is often overlooked. Even when I don't "plan ahead" and save room for tackling a slice of Cappuccino Pie, I can always find room for a refreshing dip of spumoni. So, as your reward to reading this entire missive I am offering each member of your dinner party a complimentary scoop of spumoni ice cream when you dine in with us from now through the entire month of July. This will be for dine-in only after 4 pm, and its only for my special Email Friends. Here's the catch; To get the scoop on this you have to say the phrase "Mike is Cool" to your server soon after you're seated. You get extra points if you work the phrase into a conversation with your server. If you give us a really memorable response you'll be featured on our web site.

Have a wonderful summer and thanks for allowing us to serve you.

Mike Lopercio

rigatonys.com
facebook.com/rigatonys
twitter.com/rigatonys

Happy New Year!!!

2011-04-01T18:18:00.000-07:00

Yes I do realize its April 1st and this is not an April fools prank. However, it is a brand New Year for RigaTony's. Believe it or not, one full year has already raced by since we opened our doors on April 1st 2010. I was told at the time that opening on April 1st was not exactly a good omen, but I think those same people also said our new location was cursed because so many restaurants had failed to make a go of it here. As it turned out this location has been incredible, and thanks to all of you, has been way beyond our most optimistic of expectations.
I think that part of the success we've enjoyed has been due to the fact that this is now our one and only restaurant, and Chrissy and I have rediscovered the joy of being restaurateurs. The issues and headaches of managing multiple locations took us away from an intimate connection with the business, and now we say to ourselves, "Oh yeah, this is why we do this!" Not to say that I'll never do more locations. We've been pitched lots of opportunities, but I want to enjoy this for at least another year before we decide to
drive off that bridge again.
It's also really nice to be part of a family restaurant and I mean that literally. Our children Jenny, Ellen and Kevin all work at RigaTony's with us as does Ty does when he comes home from college during the summers.
I've thought about the year and how fast it's gone by, but at the same time we've accomplished a lot since the opening. Chrissy has focused on developing the most spirited and competent service crew in the city, and the best patio garden in the city. She discovered that she inherited her mother's green thumb and nurtures everything from eggplant, peppers and herbs right there on the patio. I have been working on a new menu with Chef Hutson that we'll be introducing in two weeks. During its development we had a brainstorm and decided to change our fresh baked Ciabatta Bread to the Olive Garden's frozen bread sticks and eliminate that ridiculous antipasto salad we've served for 15 years. Hmmm... am I sensing panic, rage or a bit of both? Did you forget the date? April Fools!!! No worries - all of your favorite "sacred cow" items are safe from our meddling. Our revisions consist of introducing eight new items on the dinner menu, and I am really excited to have you try them. I'll start teasing you with details next week.
I have also hired Jody Chandler, a social media advisor, to give our web site a major tune-up and to tutor Jenny and I so we can become Facebook Experts! I admit to initially being a bit reluctant, but I have seen the light as I realize the incredible potential for us to connect with you in a more exciting way. It's going to be great fun and I encourage you to friend us at lskjdflsjfjfljfl; . There is a lot going on with our farmers market, wine dinners, retail and take-out special, cooking demonstrations for our new menu, virtual interviews and tours and so on. We have lots of great ideas in the works so you should check in to see if we can pull it off!
Thanks again for being with us through this incredible year. We're looking forward to sharing more great food, great times, and adventures with you.

Mike Lopercio

Repentant and exhausted but still babbling

2010-05-30T17:45:00.000-07:00

Did you ever lose contact with an old friend. You were supposed to call them back and then you forgot and then it became really uncomfortable and still you didn't respond and the longer you take the more difficult it becomes to make a simple phone call? That defines me and this blog. I dropped it when I finally became overwhelmed in the final stages of construction. Keeping a blog seemed like such a fun and easy idea at the time but its amazing how lack of sleep and extreme stress subtley redefines your priorities.
Anyway - we opened our humble little restaurant thanks to months of hard work by Chrissy and me, but just as much credit goes to the EXCELLENCE of our entire staff and the stunning loyalty of the RigaTony's faithful, and in the end the opening was an enormous success. I can't overstate how big the opening was. I don't normally talk about numbers because it feels like I'm devaluing the what we're really all about - serving great food. My philosophy has always been to serve great quality at a great value and the numbers will take care of themselves. But lets break that rule and talk numbers for just this once! Before we opened Chrissy and I did a business plan and endlessly debated what our sales numbers would be. My position was that we would lose about 25% of our business by moving from the Chandler location. Some people might feel it was too far away, others may not discover our move etc… I hoped at the same time that we would make new friends in our new neighborhood that would make up for most of that loss so that in the end I felt we would be doing 90% of our old business. Over the course of a year I felt we could make up the 10% difference and even build on that eventually. Chrissy, my lovely and always optimistic wife thought we would be busy from the get-go and forecast an immediate 10 to 20 % increase over last year's numbers….. The envelope please…….. The actual opening numbers are; Week One- 50% increase from 2009, Week Two - 60% increase, Week three - 70% increase. (I'm not kidding!) After week three we leveled off and now continue to hold at around 60-70% more sales than last year. I have always found that the busier we are, the better job we do. Everyone is energized and focused and after nine weeks of business we are doing an outstanding job - if I do say so myself. I love to brag on my crew because I think they are truly remarkable.

The first two or three weeks of our opening were nerve wracking because the waiting line was so long and it is painful to tell good friends they have to wait for an hour or more for dinner. Since then we've made adjustments, added seats with the opening of the garden terrace, purchased a paging system, increased the kitchen capacity, and in general have become more efficient. As a result our waiting list is rarely more than 30 minutes now.

Ok - enough numbers. I think what I want to do now is to finally finish this blog, or more accurately bring it up to date. During the opening at different times I lost both my camera and my cell phone so I don’t' have all the images I was hoping to post here. (are you beginning to feel how out of control I was?) But I did save some images and some funny moments which I will add to this blog. In the meantime I apologize to those of you who kept checking back for updates on the restaurant just to see this site frozen in time, but most importantly to those of you who helped make our opening the most exciting experience of Chrissy's and my professional carriers. We are now settled into the wonderful and comparatively relaxed routine of serving lunch and dinner to our friends every day, but that last couple of months was an "E ticket" ride we will never forget.

Here's a link to the first part of the final tour of the finished product.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRjFv4XVP3o

Mike

Construction Chaos

2010-03-04T07:32:00.000-08:00

Here is a brief look at what is going on in your new restaurant. Things are moving very quickly and its fun to watch it evolve before your eyes.

sad goodbye

2010-03-01T07:19:00.000-08:00

All of our little problems, our worries, our work and our everyday lives came into much sharper focus Sunday. Our entire crew learned with unspeakable sadness that we lost one of our own. Edgardo Ramirez, a two year Rigatony's staff member died of a heart attack on Saturday night. If you had walked through our kitchen you would have recognized him by seeing one of the hardest working people in the building with the biggest smile. His defining characteristic was that he was a joyful man, always happy, always laughing and a pleasure for everyone to work with. He was only thirty and he leaves behind a seven year old son Jair, a six year old son Jeremy, a two year old daughter Angelie and his wife Areli who is expecting their fourth child. No other words are needed beyond that and indeed none can express the shock and sadness for our crew and certainly for his family.

We are starting a collection for his family and if you wish to contribute we are accepting contributions in his name at the front desk at RigaTony's or by mail at;

First Press Ventures,
PO Box 1701
Gilbert, Arizona 85299

I'm back!

2010-02-28T07:21:00.000-08:00

I'm obviously far behind in my posts but I am going to commit to at least posting a simple picture every day. Overall things are going well. We are really excited about how its coming together. I really think the finished building will exceed our lofty expectations. Even with the pressure of a big construction project we're still having fun with the design. Between Chrissy and me, I am the more conservative - matching the EXACT shade of stain for the wainscott, and making sure everything is symmetrical and lined up. Chrissy by contrast loves chaos and surprises and talked me into a red bar. So between the two of us I am thinking we captured the essence of RigaTonys look, but with some exciting new elements.

One of the things we've committed ourselves to during these last few months in Chandler is scheduling one of us as an extra person whose only responsibility is to meet and chat with every single customer to discuss our move. I have only had time to work a few of those shifts but its been a true pleasure to spend some quality time with all of our patrons. When Chrissy gets home after working one of those shifts she is so jazzed up that I eagerly set aside an hour to listen to the highlights of her night. (how's that for delicate phrasing)
Meanwhile this Sunday morning I am looking out of my window at another half an inch of rain that’s fallen during the night and thinking that might be a pretty big obsticle for planting the two 60" box trees that are supposed to be craned into our new patio tomorrow. Would have been great to have this rain come THE DAY AFTER the trees had been planted instead of before, but just another little challenge. Bye for now. Oh first here is a pic of our new 700 pound butcher block bar top being maneuvered into the building.

Color me gray... and gold and green

2010-01-25T20:33:00.000-08:00

The painters are ahead of schedule. Hooray. They have painted the inside ceilings, exposed air ducts and now that things have dried up outside are tackling the roof and areas of the building that aren't waiting to be reconstructed. Commonweath Electric company sent a crew in today to rough out the locations of lights and switches in the new walls that we built inside. First you frame the walls, then run electric and low voltage data wiring, then get an inspection for framing and electric, then drywall, then wainscot, then paint high walls, then stain and varnish wainscot, then faux paint walls. The electrician decision was holding us up but this crew is on it and we should be ready for inspection by Thursday. We're also pouring concrete in the back of the building tomorrow morning for a utility room. Another rain delayed project to get us back on track. The pictures show one perspective of the roof being painted and my daughter Jenny helping me with a roof inspection. Extra credit if you can find and ID the hidden three people
in the first photo.

Soggy in Tempe

2010-01-24T09:51:00.000-08:00

I haven't opened a restaurant in nine years. As you get closer to the opening it gets unbelievably hectic and tense. Problem after problem crops up that you never anticipated or budgeted for. Contractors don’t show up, or they do the wrong thing. The dozen or so permits and licenses become more and more difficult to come by, and you encounter more red tape in a month than you would in a decade. You go to sleep with budget numbers floating in your head and wake up thinking about the width of an aisle or an electricians bid. Did you sleep at all? And in the end… I have to admit that I love it. I am a pressure junkie and the rush of trying to solve all the problems, keeping people together and motivated, and most importantly - and the most difficult under the circumstances - keeping your creative juices flowing to build the best facility that you possibly can. It is invigorating to me like it must be to a bungee jumper or an actor on opening night. So when it sounds like I'm whining about this problem or that - I'm not. I've found that a little whining is good therapy for me.

I will catch you up on some details this week but last week was pretty much a disaster. We've only 9 weeks or so until opening and the rain was not kind to us. It cancelled concrete pours, it caused about 10 major leaks with consequent damage in the building, and the worst storm night caused Arizona to declare a state of emergency which caused Tempe to cancel their City Council meeting which had my pending liquor license listed as item #3 on the agenda. Nice. My architect still has not secured a permit to begin construction on the outside of the building (therefore the leaks) and my electrical bid came in almost exactly twice what we budgeted.

There were good things though. I got to focus on the interior. Chrissy and I made a swing through some antique stores and bought about a dozen vintage light fixtures. My sister sent me some wooden pews from the drugstore soda fountain in Syracuse that we used to go to as kids (perfect for the lobby waiting area!) We finished deciding on and ordering the remaining pieces of kitchen equipment. We passed inspection on the kitchen plumbing and filled in the trench. I awarded bids to a paint company and a technical wiring company. We scored two awesome stained glass windows thanks to Chrissy's mom Barbara. Kim - our designer developed an awesome new tile design for the lobby and bar area which we've been really having trouble deciding on until now. But as far as where we are right now…. I think I'll give you another quickie video tour this week. You won't believe your eyes because it looks way worse than the one I took a few months ago, but I still believe we'll get this done by the end of March.

I am friends with Geoff Stanisic who owns the Mongolian Grill Restaurants and he dropped in the other day so I showed him around. After a ten minute tour of the carnage I told him the opening date and watched for his reaction. He nodded thoughtfully and said "No problem" and I breathed what was probably a visible sigh of relief. That bit of positive reinforcement was better than my daily whine.

Attention to Detail

2010-01-12T07:08:00.000-08:00

When you heard that your RigaTony’s – along with your baked RigaTony – was going to move, what was your reaction? Yes, exactly and that’s why I’m here.

This is an amazing process. Not just opening a new restaurant but moving a beloved “place” full of memories, laughs, and good meals. Mike, Chrissy and their team are paying attention to an incredible number of details – it is overwhelming and exciting!

But I’m curious, from your perspective – what makes RigaTony’s – RigaTony’s? What do you want to “see” when you walk into the Warner/McClintock location? Let me know what 2 things must make the move and what 2 new things you’d like to see.

Let me hear from you at chris_stage@cox.net

Tearing it up

2010-01-06T06:03:00.001-08:00

Huge pieces of lumber falling randomly and dangerously from the sky. Finally some fun!
Lots of activity today as we tore away the front of the building, our plumber readied our kitchen ditch for inspection, our contractor readied the framing crew for work next week, the water treatment company came in for testing, our upholstery company (Cannon's Upholstery) reviewed our entire project and hauled away about 20 booths to their shop, two exhaust hood and duct companies surveyed the job for last minute measurements for their bids, and our designer spent hours going over details with Chrissy, Chris and me to get us to where we need to be right now. As a review… because now it will get complicated, Chrissy is my wife and partner (sounds redundant but you get the idea) and Chris is Chris Stage who is a newcomer to this project.

About Chris: I met Chris doing volunteer work for a political election campaign. Since then she and her husband Roger have become friends with Chrissy and me. They are both industrious, bright, creative and have a dangerous streak of adventure to them. She has worked in radio and TV, been a government research analyst, a Peace Corps volunteer, a Rodeo Queen, a beach bum, pursued a doctorate in Communication, taught college classes, and directed a local non-profit organization.

Seems to me that would be enough for a lifetime of experiences but she and Roger have always had this irrational urge to do something creative on their own in the hospitality business. Chris came up with the idea of spending time with me on the project as a sort of "intern" and I jumped on the idea. It’s a win win fo both of us - or at least for me. I love the idea of having someone with her creative and organizational skills on the team and its always good to have someone from the "outside" to give us a fresh perspective on our efforts.

As a matter of fact, speaking of perspective, I have asked her to contribute to this blog and hopefully you will soon be hearing from Chris directly.

Darkest before the dawn

2010-01-05T06:33:00.000-08:00

Chrissy and I couldn't get to our daily south mountain hike until evening yesterday so we strapped on our headlamps and started up the slopes in chilly darkness. While we climbed I summed up the current status of our project. We are in the middle of the plumbing project from hell, illustrated with a 30 foot trench in our kitchen, the air conditioners we contracted for are out of stock, we are furiously juggling the demands of the fire department, health department, liquor board, environmental services, and the City of Tempe, I keep changing my mind and tweaking our kitchen layout and therefore delaying our equipment orders almost to the point of impossibility, and every project - our design team and contractor are well behind schedule and frustrated. We are supposed to open in 11 weeks. We plodded silently for a few moments in our tunnels of light when Chrissy asked me "How does anyone open a restaurant anymore?" I knew what she meant. I have been associated with about 20 openings in my career, four of them my own. With my experience this should be smooth sailing but it was anything but. The good news is that we FINALLY got a permit today. The interior permit at least, so we can proceed to actually build something. Hopefully we'll get the exterior permit next week so we can start work on the new look of the building and the patio. Today we also had a marketing meeting with our management staff, Ruthan our graphic artist and Chris Stage. We are still making the assumption that we are still opening in mid-late March and our big challenge is to communicate our move to thousands of customers before we leave. We put together a great campaign which kicks off this Friday. In the meantime back to the trenches.

Digging deeper

2009-12-10T07:13:00.001-08:00

My crack team of architects and engineers have submitted plans to Tempe (almost a month late) and even more impressively delivered a set to me! For a while now we have had a permit for demolition but soon we can actually start building. But only after demolishing more than we expected however. Last week we had a visit from City of Tempe water department. Everyone I've met at the city so far has been extremely courteous and has gone out of their way to be helpful…. until the visit by the water department. Bottom line, without the gory details, is that we have to dig up about 25% of our kitchen floor to re route drain lines that are buried up to five feet deep. We have a giant jacuzzi-sized grease trap buried behind the building and certain pipes need to be routed to it to collect excess grease so it doesn't end up in the city sewer system. Unfortunately for us the code has changed as to which drains need to go there. Some of the work is reasonable and logical, but when it was pointed out to me that I have to spend thousands of dollars to plow up a perfectly tiled kitchen floor to install drains to collect the greasy residue from an ice machine and a lettuce washing sink, well its mindless bureaucracy at its worst.

That set me up for an unexpected inspection visit from the Tempe fire department. My jaw tightened when I drove up and saw the truck in the parking lot, but his demeanor was the polar opposite and he was nothing but helpful and constructive in helping me understand exactly what needed to be done. A smile and a handshake later I felt good about Tempe again. Now that I have plans I am scrambling to line up subs for concrete, wrought iron, a good technical guy to help with the electronics of the building (surveillance, phone, pos and sound systems) an upholsterer, and a welder (for stainless work) If anyone knows someone who fits the bill have them email me at AZjobpost@aol.com.

From the ground up

2009-12-08T12:43:00.000-08:00

Let me tell you about the beautiful wood floors in our dining rooms. Well, actually they used to be beautiful many years ago. They are the genuine thing; thick natural strips of oak laid plank by plank, sanded smooth and finished in place. Its almost impossible to find a floor like this anymore outside of a private home so we were shocked when we peeled up the carpets and discovered them. Now to refinish them. I've complained about money before so it won't surprise you to know we had no money in the budget to bring in a professional to restore them. It takes peeling off the carpet, scraping off layers of glue, endless hours of sanding through the old varnish and stain, and finally restaining and varnishing. JVG convinced me that he and our crew could do the work ourselves. Looking back I realize it was the tightness of our budget talking to me and not his prowess as a finish craftsman. JVG has an unbelievable range of skills but fine finish work is not one of them. (He also has almost zero technical savvy so I can feel free trash talking him here where he will never know it) Anyway, after a week of dousing the floor with random solvents, scraping and mostly gouging the wood I put a halt to the action and placed an emergency ad on Craig's list and begin weeding my way through the 20 or so craftsmen who applied for the job within 24 hours of placing the ad. We settled on Earl from Winslow. More about the unusual nature of Earl in later posts, but after all was said and done he did an amazing job at an amazing price. He is finished with 75% of the floors in only a week and is coming back this weekend to finish the job (fingers firmly crossed) Pictures don't do it justice but the floors are gorgeous, maybe too gorgeous for humble old RigaTony's - but we'll let you be the judge.

A rewarding Thanksgiving diversion

2009-11-30T06:57:00.000-08:00

Just a quick post to acknowledge my crew for their excellent work in helping to provide a Thanksgiving feast to needy Chandler residents at the Chandler Boys and Girls Club. Iguana Mack's and RigaTony's has been providing food for this event for 12 years and this year was special because it represented the christening of their new facility. We had a huge turn out - over 700 people were fed who otherwise would not have the benefit of a holiday dinner.

A moment of calm

2009-11-20T07:01:00.000-08:00

Today feels like the eye of the hurricane. Weirdly I have no appointments today but every upcoming day for the next week will be building to chaos. Monday alone I have 4 meetings, one with my technical guy to review the wiring plan for the restaurant. We need to wire for surveillance cameras, sound equipment, telephone locations and point of sale locations. Then a meeting with our retail group to launch our new retail campaign which I will explain later, another plan review meeting with architect, designer and contractors, and then a tour of the brand new Boys and Girls Club facility where we will be feeding close to 1000 needy people a Thanksgiving dinner on Wednesday next week. So today is left to planning and making preparations at home here for the 60 -70 friends and family that will be joining Chrissy and me for thanksgiving, which is by the way our anniversary (any creative suggestions for that shopping duty are welcome!).

Through all of it I have to push my architect to get his work done and get these construction plans into the city. We can't start construction until the city approves our plans and its getting very tight. Our lease ends in Chandler on March 30th of 2010, so we must be open before then. According to my plan there should be only be three days in March when Baked RigaTony is not available. Its up to my architect to make sure that doesn't turn into a month or more. (Are you reading this Todd?!!!!)

I have been emailed a question through this post as to when we are opening in Tempe and my best guess is March 17th. The new location is something I neglected to document here as well. It is at 1850 E Warner Road on the NE corner of McClintock and Warner Road. It used to be a 3 Margaritas Restaurant.

We can't do any construction yet but here's some destruction of a fine looking fireplace that was in the entry of the restaurant.

2009-11-18T06:24:00.000-08:00

I have discovered that I am not a natural blogger. I was never one for journals or photo albums either so it shouldn't have been a surprise. Nevertheless I am going to regroup as we enter the complex construction phase and post at least several times a week to document the evolution of this project.

Here's a brief recap of what we've been working on in the last few weeks.

We've completed our exterior elevation plan and submitted drawings to Tempe for approval. They initial reaction seemed positive, but we'll see when we get comments back hopefully in a few days. Our landlord had to sign off on the plan as well, and they were very enthusiastic. I'll post the actual exterior elevations as soon as we get approval.At the same time we've completed our construction plans and are fine tuning everything before turning them into the city as well. We're behind about two weeks on this and I have to admit that I'm nervous about being behind on something that we had so much time to do. The construction plans include a complete revamp of our heating and ac system, a total redo on the kitchen, all new surfaces in the dining rooms and bar, and of course the construction of a new building facade and a patio.I've continued to purchase equipment for the kitchen and bar and recently scored on an awesome 30 gallon steam jacketed tilting kettle which to our chef is like moving up from a bicycle to a Masseratti. We have also been interviewing trades to select who we want when we start building. Sign painters, concrete, paint, electrical contractors etc....Another interesting development is the addition of a Doctor to our staff. More about that later.

In the mean time here are a couple of pictures. One is of JVG and Greg gingerly moving the old Mesa RigaTony's neon sign from where its been stored in my backyard to the repair shop. (note: I've never used "JVG" and "gingerly" in the same sentence before). The next is a shot of what happened moments later. No just kidding, but its a funny sequence. The truck turned over in front of the restaurant the other day when we were doing demo inside. No one was hurt.

We're having a Vine Time

2009-10-10T19:08:00.000-07:00

The clock is ticking and we're mostly going back and forth from our architect to our designer through interminable design meetings. The project isn't that complicated its just that; 1.) We want to create an incredible impression 2.) We are adding several new elements to the concept, and 3.) As is true with almost everyone today - we have a very tight budget. But finally yesterday we made our final decisions on what the outside of the building and patio will look like, and are very close on an exciting floor plan that does everything we want it to do. Now its up to the architect to turn them into plans that the city can review. I'll post elevations in the next couple of weeks after we turn them into the city. In the meantime one of our objects is to introduce lots of vegetation to the patio we're going to build and an "Italian Patio" translates to lots of vines. It may look a little underwhelming but above is a picture of the start of our "vine farm" that Chrissy started in our backyard. We will probably double or triple the size in the coming weeks so we can get a head start on getting some mature plants in place by our opening in the spring. I've also been skulking about on craigslist looking for restaurant equipment deals. Here is an antique service desk - perhaps from a hotel that I found and that we will be using in our take-out area, and also pictured below is a retro looking refrigerated deli case that we will be using in our retail section. I found them both in Casa Grande of all places and they're now safe and sound at the new restaurant. Yesterday I went to central phoenix to buy a used back bar refrigerator and negotiated on some new but liquidated bar stools. I have a list of about 30 items that I have budgeted to buy and my object is to find them for less than the budget calls for, because its inevitable that we'll have some big budget surprises down the road. So far so good though. We are planning to replace the entire 20 year old HVAC system with a brand new system of three state-of-the-art humongous AC units, and we just got what i think will be the winning bid yesterday. I was going to tell you how much it is for but we haven't awarded it yet. Weirdly, however, the bid matches our budget almost to the dollar. Hmmmm .... makes me think that I better keep a closer eye on who I let see that budget.

Finally a deadline

2009-09-03T17:49:00.000-07:00

I'm back from my second vacation and probably the last break I'll have for quite a while. Its been a hectic week getting back into the groove mending the minor catastrophes with the two restaurants that have happened over the last two weeks. In addition we have a new menu rolling out at Iguana Mack's next week that I've been working with my graphic artist and Chef Jason on, I had an always stressful meeting at the Chandler Planning and Zoning department to get approval for our liquor license extension, we've solicited several air conditioning companies for bids for the new RigaTony's and negotiated the final details on the architects contract for work on RigaTony's. Part of that contract calls for us to submit our ideas for the exterior design by Mid September - just two weeks away. To that end we met again with Kim & Howard - just like past meetings but new there's the pressure of a deadline and the commitment to one single design.

We met for a couple of hours comparing ideas and reviewing tons of photos that Chrissy has been collecting like mad. I think we ended up with a great exterior design and now Kim will go to work doing some photo-shop magic to crank out some renderings so we can get an idea how the final facade will work. Just for fun I submitted a hand drawn rendering of my own today. Don't' panic - its nothing close to what we'll end up with...

The Boss is back

2009-08-07T13:05:00.000-07:00

We're back in town and frantically trying to catch up from vacation. Meetings next week with potential architects and our first official design meeting as well. I'll fill in more details when I have time to breathe. In the meantime Jenny graced us with her presence and here she is hamming it up in our plush office.

Vacation!

2009-07-24T16:38:00.000-07:00

Chrissy and I are off on weeks vacation. Any requests for pictures of Barcelona?

It was a dark and stormy night...

2009-07-21T22:25:00.000-07:00

Chrissy I drove over to the restaurant during a lull in last nights storm to see if there were any leaks in the ceiling. We were concerned because it was the first real storm since we took possession and Tempe was getting hammered with huge amounts of rain and high winds. We could see a half dozen trees ripped out of the ground in our shopping center alone. The electricity had gone out at the house for almost two hours.
As we unlocked the front door and shut off the alarm I realized immediately that I should have brought some buckets. There were three steady leaks in the dining room, one in the men's bathroom, and a couple outright waterfalls in the kitchen. The roof over the kitchen is flat and it serves as a platform for all of the mechanical equipment like air conditioners and exhausters. I had already inspected the roof and I knew that all of the equipment was ancient. The exhaust fans are rusted, the condensers for the walk-in coolers are filthy and useless looking and the AC units are huge 20 year old dinosaurs. The roof looked like a junkyard and the surface itself is cracked and blistered and needs to be completely redone, so its no surprise that streams of water are working their way down into the building with relative ease. As I wandered around in that dark steamy building, peering into shadowy corners with a flashlight I could hear dripping sounds all around, and I felt a gorge of panic welling up inside me. A little voice in my head called out "What have you gotten yourself into!"

"Hot" Prospect

2009-07-20T00:39:00.000-07:00

I called a meeting on Friday morning 10-17 for the purpose of interviewing an architect that was recommended to me. We are seated here reviewing plans, outlining our scope of work and what role we need an architect to provide. From left to right there is a mechanical engineer (forgot his name!), Howard our contractor, our own JVG, and Joshua Oelher from Arcone Associates who is basically trying to impress us, and actually doing a pretty good job. Across from Joshua is my seat and if you look close you can see a clipboard with a gizmo watch on it (mine of course). It is a fancy altimeter watch and during the course of the three hour meeting I checked the thermometer function on the watch and it read 97 degrees. As you can tell we are definitely on the summer energy saver plan.

Reality Check

2009-07-18T08:15:00.000-07:00

This story has a point if you hang in there.

Part of the culture of our company includes community involvement. We participate in fundraisers and charitable events throughout the year. I won't list what we do in detail but they range from our annual Thanksgiving Dinner for 500 people at the Boys and Girls Club, to fundraisers for the Maricopa County animal shelter, which bizarrely culminates with 100 people having lunch with their dog on Iguana Mack's patio. One of our Managers, Laura Arias volunteers for every event and brainstormed a new one that was unveiled Thursday night. It was a fundraiser for the Breast Cancer Foundation and in simplest terms it consisted of volunteers from our staff dressing up as "celebrities" and ultimately donating all of their tips to the charity. RigaTony's would kick in 10% of any sales we would do that night. To be honest I now admit that I had trouble wrapping my head around this one right up until the time the doors opened. It seemed a little half-baked, a little silly and I was doubtful that our guests would figure it out or have fun with it.

It can be disturbing when I realize how wrong I can be. My first realization was when I got there at about 6:oo pm, couldn't find a parking space and had to park on the street. The place was packed. We're talking about a mid-July, random Thursday night in the middle of a financial melt-down, and we're on a wait. My next clue was the TV crew that arrived from channel 10 to cover the "event". I picked up a tray and started busing tables and thus was able to overhear comments by the staff and customers. Sarah Palin (aka Stephanie - our GM) was explaining to a table that it took a while to get them their butter because she had to go to Russia to get it. Could they have another glass of wine? "You Betcha!" People were laughing, engaging, pointing and grossly over-tipping. The entire building was filled with a Mayberry vibe and suddenly I felt like Barny Fife.

As I walked around our cheesy little restaurant I questioned myself about what makes this restaurant feel like this. What are the elements that give this business this small town feel, this feeling of community, this ability to communicate so personally with our guests. Is it the vintage linoleum floor tile, the random table types, the hand made curtains with fabric from Wal-mart, the postage-stamp-sized lobby? Whatever it is, nights like this make me realize more than ever that I have to be able to identify it, pack it up carefully, and seamlessly reproduce it 5 miles down the road. I don't think I have felt any more pressure to be carefully creative than I did Thursday night.

At any rate Laura's event was a huge success. She (AKA Dora the Explorer) was grinning from ear to ear all night as she ripped around the restaurant. At the end of the night we inked a check to the Breast Cancer Foundation for $1,998.

Time Travel to Tempe

2009-07-09T10:01:00.000-07:00

I got a call from Michael Williams at the City of Tempe who said they had reproduced some old construction plans and they were ready for me to pick up. I was surprised they still had copies of construction documents from the late 80's when our building was built. He told me they stored documents from the 60's! Think about that. That means they must be storing plans for 75% of every structure in Tempe - and some have been rebuilt 2 or 3 times over. Whats even more incredible is how they store them. Have you ever seen an old black and white movie where the detective researches newspaper articles with a back-lit micofilm viewer? The public library in my hometown of Syracuse used to have one of those gizmos that I fooled with with when I was a kid. They are collectors items now, in a day when we can access the Library of Congress on our laptops at any Starbucks. Except... that's what Tempe still uses! Its kind of charming in a way. The results aren't so good however. Lots of the documents are smudged and the resolution is poor, but hey! - they delivered, fast and with a smile to boot. Here is Suzanne Garrido who worked hard to produce my huge stack of documents sitting at their hack-proof microfilm reader (sorry Ryan!)

Independance Day Trek

2009-07-09T09:33:00.000-07:00

This post has nothing to do with the process of building a restaurant, but hey - its a holiday. Chrissy and I hike at South Mountain park every day. Needless to say it is difficult during the summer, but the 4th of July presents a special challenge; The park closes its parking lot gate to all visitors. Unless you happen to drive a motorcycle which can squeeze around the parking grate. Its cool to have thousands of acres to yourself and overlook a city of millions at the same time. Sometimes we find a lookout and look down on a half dozen fireworks displays at once. This year we just did a sunset hike.

Video Tour - Part 3 - The Kitchen

2009-07-03T22:04:00.000-07:00

Video Tour - Part 2 - Bar and east dining room

2009-07-03T21:26:00.001-07:00

Video Tour part 1

2009-07-03T16:30:00.000-07:00

John and Greg were busy getting the restaurant cleaned up from being hastily vacated months ago, and they had it pretty well underway so I took this opportunity to film a brief tour so we can rememmber what the starting point was. This is the first of two parts.

The Hutson and Alyssa Show

2009-07-01T21:56:00.000-07:00

Not too much activity today except that Michael Williams called from the City and said that he had already discovered our plans in the City's archives and would work on reproducing them for us to pick up next week. Also I called the City Utilities department and asked about our water turn-on situation. They assured me that our water was turned on yesterday as arranged. I sent John Van Gundy (aka JVG) our company handyman over to check it out and with the simple twist of the wrist to an outside valve he got it flowing. I had walked around the building twice yesterday and I didn't see any $%&$ valve! He gave me one of his condescending smiles when he told me about it. The big news of the day however was that Alyssa, our company Marketing Guru was able to arrange for us to do a TV cooking demonstration on Good Day Arizona. We asked Chef Hutson to prepare the Pasta Trio entree that we are running as our summer dinner promotion. They both described the studio as a chaotic scene with a new producer, and they had just a few moments to get situated for the cooking segment before the cameras started rolling. Hutson said that Alyssa frantically had her dress hitched up to snap her wireless mic onto her underwear just moments before they went live. That would have eclipsed the Michael Jackson coverage if that had aired. Even with that, the spot went great! They both handled the pressure like real pros and moments after the show ended we got a call from a woman who booked a reservation for twelve for the Pasta Trio dinner tomorrow night.

City Hall

2009-06-30T17:46:00.000-07:00

Howard, Russell and I went to City hall this morning, the upside down pyramid by ASU, to meet with city planning officials. The meeting was arranged in advance by Chris Anaradian - Manager of Development Services and also attending was Lisa Collins (Planning Director) and Michael Williams (Deputy Development Services Director). We all met in a conference room and I gave them an approximate scope of work. We're not tearing the building down so we don't need a complete set of architectural plans, but we need permits for things I didn't realize, like a new water heater, and replacing air conditioners. Most of our interior work is cosmetic when it gets right down to it. Lots of cosmetic, but stuff that doesn't require permits, like floors, paint, upholstery, seating etc. We will need a new ceiling plan and a lighting plan.

Michael is going to go through the city archives to look for plans for the building - for which we have zip. We also discussed the patio - which will need to be reviewed by Lisa's department, and we have to make sure in advance that the parking lot can support the additional seating of a patio. The meeting was super-productive and I think we all have a clear vision of what we're required to do. We aren't close to a design but we know what to do when we have one. All three officials were cordial and helpful and played along with the above staged photo-op where it looks like I'm making a big presentation. The plans I'm pointing to are unrelated to our project and just happened to be laying around. If you zoom onto the picture you'll see the plans say 2 CAR GARAGE.

Later in the afternoon I unlocked the restaurant for Emily and Carina, two budding designers from Kim's office, because they ne eded to re-measure THE ENTIRE BUILDING to complete their floor plan. It must have been over 100 degrees in there and Emily is extremely pregnant but they spent the hottest hours of the day in there measuring every possible dimension in the building. I wimped out after a while and came back later to let them out. They were all smiles and WAY more enthusiastic than I was. While I was there I checked to see if the water had been turned on as promised by the City…. It wasn't. I tried to call the city but my face was so sweaty that pressing my face against my new Blackberry Storm caused the phone to seize. I hate this phone.

Elevation Time

2009-06-29T12:28:00.000-07:00

I met with Dan from Ecolab, our pest control company at 7:00 am this morning and developed a construction schedule to take care of our creepy friends. We are scheduled to have the water turned on tomorrow and can then begin cleaning the place up later this week. I recieved a rendering from Kim Dalton of Dalton Interiors. Just a first draft idea of how the building might look with the front fake log work removed, adding a simple patio, awning etc.... Its a nice start and if you zoom in on the patio you'll see me and JVG hanging out. Makes it even more surreal than it already is! I will try to do a complete video and photo tour before we do anything substantial inside. It really isn't bad. I've been in restaurants that are open for business and are much dirtier than this is. Tommorrow my contractor Howard is going with me to the City of Tempe for our first meeting with the city. This should be interesting....

The big reveal

2009-06-27T14:00:00.000-07:00

Today Chrissy and I held a meeting with the Managers and we told them for the first time what was in store for RigaTony's, and ultimately for them. I had expected them to be happy about the move, but they were practically jumping out of their seats with excitement. Laura especially. She kept interrupting me saying "Can we go there? Can we go now?!" Which is what we ended up doing. I took them on a tour of the building giving them an overview of the plan - which is all I actually have right now! Steph was just wowed by the place, especially the patio plan, and Hutson had some bizarre décor ideas which I won't disturb you with. It was hot and muggy and pretty oppressive inside the building but its so exciting we hardly noticed.
We talked about how and when to tell our customers about the move. It’s the scariest part to me because information gets garbled so easily and "RigaTony's is moving" will inevitably get translated into "RigaTony's is closing!" It could be a disaster as we're at least 9 months from the move and I can visualize people not coming for dinner because RigaTony's is closed!!! I have a plan for communicating this clearly that which we discussed at length which, as it happens, includes this blog.
While we were taking pictures of the outside a couple pulled up to have lunch. We told them the restaurant wasn't open and Laura launched into a hard sell for Iguana Mack's which included a discount card.

A new beginning

2009-06-26T19:39:00.000-07:00

Fifteen years ago in 1994 I signed a lease on a run down decrepid building on the corner of Knox and Arizona Ave in Chandler. It had been a Golden Corral Restaurant, and then a series of failed Mexican restaurants. Being a New York Italian I had always wanted to open a little neighborhood Italian joint and I had been eyeing the corner for serveral years. It seemed about the right size and it was really close to my other restaurant, Chops. Finally I drove by and saw a white paper posted to the front door which pretty much always pronounced the death of a restaurant, and I quicky called the landlord so I could roll the dice and try to succeed where others had failed. I signed the lease and later that day began a careful inspection. The place was a catastrophy. The windows were painted black and protected by pool fencing. The bar was made of corrugaged steel and chicken wire. The floors were chipped and painted concrete and adorned with cheap plastic furniture. Cockroaches outnumbered whatever customers they had by 10 to 1. The electrical panels were disassembled and taken apart and hazardously wired to run backwards so electric generators could run the lights when the power company shut the place down. My friends and family thought I was crazy, but I had an undeserved and probably very naive confidence in the property and six months later RigaTony's was born. We struggled in the beginning, but ultimately succeeded and prospered beyond any expectation.

I never dreamed back then that the fifteen year lease I signed would slowly slip away with me still being in that building, and doing more business than ever before. Hell, I had just turned 40 and still at the stage where fifteen years seemed like infinity. How fast it all goes by. In the last few years I have seen the last day of the end of our lease inexorably approaching. Choices? I had several. Renew the lease for X many more years? Retire and do nothing? Or move our beloved institution to another location.

None of these choices seemed all that great. Its a long long story but our landlord is a complete and utter nightmare to deal with. If I was a novelist I would employ his character as a world class villian, and only an iron-clad lease has protected us from him for the last decade and a half. I made a couple attempts to negotiate, but I quicky realized that it was pointless. Retire and kill RigaTony's? Well, at 57, I'm still a youngster and some people are just starting to hit thier prime at my age. Besides I love my job and I think I am just now finally getting good at this. Besides if I killed RigaTony's I'd get even more death threats than I did when I killed Chops. So over time I realized that no matter the difficulty, no matter the expense, RigaTony's would have to be moved, and at the start of this year Chrissy and I began the search for the perfect location.

Well, after months of searching I have been reminded that sometimes the answers to tough questions are a lot closer to home that you realize. I had, for quite a while been intrigued by a restaurant building that was less than a mile from my house in south Tempe, where I have lived since 1993. When I moved to the neighborhood the the building was operating as a JB's restaurant, for which it was originally designed. It was then reincarnated as a Timberlodge Steakhouse. That didn't last more than a couple of years and then became a failing Mexican Restaurant. Does anyone besides me see a pattern here? This time I approached the landlord BEFORE the restaurant closed and just today we recieved the keys to our brand new, beat up old restaurant.

The restaurant has been closed up for a couple of months now and as I inspect the inside of the building I breath in the stale greasy frangrence of fried tortillas, inspect the cracked and vandalized windows, and dodge the occasional scurrying cockroach. And yet all I feel the thrill and exhillaration of a challenge. A challenge the likes of which I haven't felt for exactly 15 years.

This time I have committed myself to posting our progress on this project. The difference between now and 15 years ago is that I have thousands of loyal RigaTony's guests to whom I owe both our past success and and a concise communication about where we are going and how we're getting there. I am hoping this blog will give all of you a voice and an actual method of being involved in this project. After all, in a sense it's as much your restaurant as it is mine. I'm also willing to wager that the crazy ride between now and our grand opening will be at least a little entertaining. Thanks for reading - stay tuned!

Mike