EATZI'S EYES SECOND SITE, BUT DEFINITELY NOT IN DALLAS

ROSEANNE HARPER

DALLAS -- The operators of hybrid restaurant-food store Eatzi's are scoping out locations for the second of its kind -- but its creators have decided Eatzi's No. 2 will not be here in Dallas.

"We will not open another Eatzi's here. We want to plant the flag in another city," said Harry Day, spokesman for Brinker International, the company that, along with restaurateur Phil Romano, launched Eatzi's here last spring.

Eatzi's, with its strong emphasis on fresh, chef-prepared foods to take out, is described by its founders as a hybrid falling somewhere between a restaurant and an upscale grocery store.

Eight markets are currently under consideration for the second unit, which will be built from the ground up, Day said. He declined, however, to name the locations, "because they float," meaning the geographical locations under review can change from week to week as available real estate and demographics are researched.

He did say that a common thread that runs through the prospective locations for a second Eatzi's is that they are among the top 15 markets in the country, Day said, in terms of volume.

"We're looking all over, from coast to coast, but all locations we're considering are major cities. The actual sites we're looking at are just outside the business district of the city, as you start to get into residential areas, similar to the type of location we have here," he said.

"We want to capture the lunch business and the dinner business," Day said. He noted that a mix of offices and residences nearby, as well as sufficient population density, is a key ingredient in making the most of all the day's parts.

Toward that end, too, the company will add more indoor seating at the next Eatzi's. At the first Eatzi's here, indoor seating is offered only at a coffee bar where capacity is limited. Outdoor seating at the store accommodates 70.

"We actually have only 12 chairs in the store here. That's because we thought the business would be very heavily takeout and it is. Even so, customers keep telling us -- and they have from the beginning -- that we need more seating inside," Day said.

Ira Blumenthal, president of Co-Opportunities, Atlanta, a consulting and marketing firm that works with food service and supermarkets, praised the plan to add seating. "Some people want to escape from their office at lunchtime," Blumenthal said. "They need a break. So even though I think Eatzi's will always be skewed to takeout, some customers could pass them by the next time because there's no place to sit."

The planners have not yet determined what amount of seating would be sufficient to add to the next location. It will depend somewhat on the demographics and the total size of the building, Day said.

"It could also be related to the climate, too. If it's not so temperate as here, we'd need more indoor seating and less outdoor seating," he added.

At the second Eatzi's, the building itself will be 3,000 to 4,000 square feet larger than the first, Day said. The basic layout, however, will remain the same. So will the staples on the menu, with possibly some regional items added, he said.

"Inside, the store will be about 90% the same, but the total space will probably be 11,000 to 12,000 square feet and the one here is just 8,000. We'll use some of the added space at the next store for back room.

"We really need a bigger clean-up area so people aren't running into each other. With the volume of food we're producing every day, employees tend to get in each others' way cleaning up. And we need a break room, too, for the employees," he explained.

Normally, about 60 employees are on the premises at any given time, but more recently that number sometimes reaches 75, Day said. "That's because we're training a lot of people right now," he said.

Indeed, all chefs and key personnel for the new site will be trained here at the original Eatzi's and probably at least one full-time manager from here will relocate to the second Eatzi's, Day said.

"Training key people here is a necessity. Eatzi's is truly a hybrid operation. We can't just hire someone with the right experience from the supermarket or the restaurant industry. There are skills people learn in the supermarket business and other skills people learn in the restaurant business, but Eatzi's puts a whole new set of demands on them," Day added.

Since no real estate has yet been purchased, the time frame for unveiling the next Eatzi's is "not within the next six months," he said.

While Eatzi's creators had at first considered opening a second unit here, the idea was discarded about a month ago, Day said.