EATZI'S BRINGS UNIQUE SUPERMARKET-RESTAURANT TO NORTHEAST

ROSEANNE HARPER

DALLAS -- EatZi's here has made its first foray into the Northeast with the July 30 opening of a unit in Westbury, N.Y., and officials have already pegged it a success.

Customer traffic has easily been up to projections, they said.

"We had hoped people in the Northeast would like us and it sure looks like they do. We're getting good feedback," said Lane Cardwell, EatZi's president.

Cardwell noted that he also expects customer traffic to increase steadily, as it has at the first three EatZi's locations, as customers learn how to make use of the concept.

"We're in the educational process right now at Westbury. The whole concept is still relatively new. There's that question about whether we're a restaurant or a retail store, but people eventually learn that they can shop for a meal as they would in a store and they get restaurant quality."

When EatZi's opened its second unit -- in Houston, Texas -- late last summer, managers there told SN a lot of local residents thought EatZi's was a restaurant. "They were calling to make reservations for dinner," said one manager.

The hybrid supermarket-restaurant concept launched here in 1996 by Brinker International, also based here, and restaurateur Phil Romano has attracted a tremendous amount of industry attention.

The company, however, does no consumer advertising. Instead, it invites a selected group of residents and business people from the area to visit EatZi's for two days prior to opening. That strategy allows associates to get in gear before the public opening and also lays the groundwork for word-of-mouth advertising, Cardwell said.

At Westbury, the company also got famed culinary expert Julia Child to help it kick off the new unit, and that attracted media attention, Cardwell said.

The EatZi's location in Westbury, a densely populated Long Island community, is situated in a strip mall across from a huge shopping center.

Like its Atlanta location -- its third, which was opened in April -- the newest EatZi's has no outdoor seating.

"It just doesn't lend itself to outdoor seating like we have in Dallas and Houston," Cardwell said. He also pointed out that the indoor seating is at the back of the store, adjacent to the coffee bar. In a departure from the first two locations, the EatZi's in Atlanta has its coffee bar and seating at the front of the store, next to the bakery.

Atlantans who talked to SN said they look upon the seating up front as an added convenience because they can just run in and grab coffee and dessert and head out if they want to.

But physical limitations prevented locating seating up-front at Westbury, Cardwell said.

"Because of New York State liquor laws, we had to put our wine shop up there instead," he said. He referred to the state's legal requirements that a wine or liquor store must have its own entrance to the outside.

Cardwell said a second Long Island EatZi's is already in the company's plans.

The next opening in the Northeast, however, will be in the basement of Macy's department store in midtown Manhattan. Opening day is set for October 16. Cardwell also said an EatZi's will be opened in Boston late next spring.