Cover Story: Word of mouth
Second generation restaurateurs bring style to region’s eateries
By Margaret LeRoux
Restaurant dining in Worcester is stodgy no more. Today’s restaurateurs offer fanciful menu items like bite-sized Kobe beef burgers, imaginative versions of sushi, rustic ingredients like oxtail transformed into gourmet fare, and interior design as stunning as any fancy bistro in Boston.
Foodies are responding. More than a thousand of them jammed Union Station on Jan. 28 for the "Best Chefs of Worcester" competition, won by a pair of sushi chefs whose tiny restaurant, Baba, opened just weeks before the competition.
The Peoples’ Choice award, however, went to Chris Rovezzi, whose father’s restaurant was a fixture in downtown Worcester 20 years ago. The young Rovezzi is chef-owner of three restaurants that bear his name: in Sturbridge, Worcester and the newest, a casual trattoria, in Rutland.
Rovezzi is one of a handful of second-generation Worcester restaurateurs who are reinventing their parents’ visions, serving trendy food and drinks to discerning customers. They have discovered a new base of business among diners who aren’t bargain hunters. For them, dining is entertainment, and they’re willing to pay for it.
A passion for the business
Coral Seafood, opened by Theodocios "Ted" Voyiatzis and staffed by his wife and sons, became known for freshness and bargain prices 22 years ago on Green Street. Last November, a year after the original restaurant closed, son Jim Voyiatzis opened a new Coral Seafood on Shrewsbury Street. The chic, sophisticated and spacious new establishment is the second expansion by the Voyiatzis family. Jim’s brother George runs another Coral Seafood in Marlboro.
The Sakhat family’s El Basha, which introduced the city to Lebanese cuisine 16 years ago, added a third location earlier this year in Westboro and will open a fourth El Basha in Providence later this year.
In a new venture that takes the Sakhats far from their origins, they have joined forces with chef Kenzo Phan and opened Haiku, a café offering a sushi bar and French-Asian fusion cuisine on Park Avenue.
The upscale Block 5 Bistro on Worcester’s Green Street is a magnet for urban sophisticates. The four owners, led by Mike Covino, formerly worked at the Sole Proprietor and 111 Chop House.
They aim to duplicate their Block 5 success by serving up a new trend – tapas – at Bocado, their new restaurant on Winter Street. They are savvy marketers, using websites and online ads to create "buzz," to reach broader audiences, and to make their way onto restaurant goers’ blogs.
The Block 5 Group’s billboard on I-290 builds awareness of the bistro and introduces their new restaurant. Rovezzi advertises on cable TV’s Food Network. He and the Sakhats and Voyiatzis families also rely on word of mouth. Their established reputation gives them a solid base on which to build return business for their new restaurants.
Mike Covino, co-owner of Block 5 Bistro and Bocado. His group of chefs and owners use websites and online ads to create ∈buzz,∈ and to get onto restaurant-goers∈ blogs.New venue, established formula
Voyiatzis oversees everything from the menu to the décor at the new Coral Seafood. Decorating was a challenge. The restaurant’s new home is a former auto dealership that had been abandoned for 20 years. "It was structurally sound, but with everything we had to do to bring it up to code, it probably would have been easier to tear it down and start from scratch," he notes.
But there were advantages too – lots of windows, ample room for large functions on the second floor, plenty of parking, and enough excess space to provide a branch office for the restaurant’s mortgage holder, Digital Credit Union.
Voyiatzis is banking on an old formula for his new restaurant – fresh food and good service. "My dad goes into Boston every day to buy fish. He’s built up great relationships with wholesale companies," he says. He also trains the staff himself. "I tell them to act like they’re on stage; people are watching, so keep smiling."
His instructions were sorely tested when new restaurant opened last November. He’d been expecting business to be so light that there would be time to get the staff up to speed on the new computers. But fourteen tables filled up the first night; twice that number came the second night, and the first Saturday night saw an hour-long wait for a table. "It was chaotic," he admits. "We didn’t expect a rush that quickly."
Old customers came in to check out the new place, he says. Sunday afternoons, it’s filled with families having dinner, "just like in the old restaurant."
Trend-seeking crowds have also discovered Bocado, which means mouthful in Spanish. Its large assortment of appetizer-size items range from braised rabbit to marinated shrimp with goat cheese. On weekends, enthusiastic throngs overflow the bar and dining area into the adjacent function room. Everyone seems to be having fun, which is one of the owners’ goals.
Not going to wait
One of the surprises during Block 5’s first 15 months was its audience. "Our concept was urban, a little edgy, modern and hip but we found that appeals to a wider range of ages than we expected," Covino says.
Block 5’s initial success prompted expansion plans. But the costs of adding on to the building were prohibitive. So the group, which includes managing chef Steve Champagne, Michael Desrosiers and Kevin Ludy, entered into negotiations to buy the restaurant spaces formerly occupied by SPQR and 86 Winter Street.
They now have a purchase and sales agreement for the ground floor of the building; the upper floors are being converted into condos.
The Block 5 Group is confident that the tapas concept will generate a following. "It’s the kind of place that works in large urban areas," Covino says. "While planning the new restaurant, we had a lot of discussions about where’s the tipping point – what is going to bring people downtown? Do the restaurants have to be there first or the entertainment or the living spaces?"
He says he’s not going to wait for the city to revive around him. "I’m not going to sit back and wait until the theater project is completed or the Chevalier building is filled with condos," he says. "I’m in the restaurant business. I can contribute by doing what I do."
The king and queen of Worcester’s Restaurant Row Robb and Madeleine Ahlquist, the restaurant duo who originally launched the Worcester area’s high-style restaurant business, are at it again. The couple, co-owners of The Sole Proprietor and One Eleven Chop House restaurants in Worcester, are preparing to open a third Worcester restaurant, VIA Italian Table, in late March, at 89 Shrewsbury St. |
VIA will be located in the flatiron-style building formerly used by the Worcester Public School Department. It will have 7,500 square feet of space, with seating for 200. Diners will be able to order until 1:30 a.m. and the restaurant will be open seven days a week. Food will be available to-go and most meals will be moderately priced under $20.
The menu will include staples such as grilled pizzas and sandwiches, but will also offer authentic Italian meals such as gnocchi pie, Italian paella, Sicilian meatloaf and swordfish Milanese.
The Ahlquists will also import fresh pastas, cheese and olive oil from Italy, observing that these items taste better in Italy than they do in the U.S. VIA will feature about 50 wines, almost exclusively Italian. The idea is to offer comfort food in an artful setting. In Italian tradition, diners can sit at a central table, sharing space with others and making new friends.
The design and construction team that built One Eleven Chop House adjacent to VIA and redesigned the Sole Proprietor is also responsible for VIA. Niemitz Design of Boston is the designer, with architectural duties performed by Gregory O’Connor Associates, and general contractor services supplied by Whipple Construction of Worcester. C.P.O.
From shawarma to sushi
Taking a known business into a new direction is the current challenge for Sakhat brothers: John, George and Elie, who literally grew up in their father’s restaurant, El Basha.
After his father died last spring, John, the eldest son, assumed the responsibilities of head of the family. "We don’t have six bosses here, we all discuss, sometimes argue, but we work it out and what John says is what goes," George Sakhat says.
When the former On the Rocks bar, a neighbor to the El Basha on Park Avenue was closed down, the Sakhats decided to combine their family’s restaurant management experience with their friend’s sushi expertise.
Each of the Sakhat brothers maintains a strong presence at the three current El Basha locations – John at Belmont Street, George on Park Avenue and Eli in Westboro, an important factor in their success, they agree.
John greets every customer. He patrols the restaurant to keep it tidy, and sometimes offers complimentary coffee or dessert in a demonstration of "Lebanese style hospitality." The response has been a loyal following. "There are families who have been coming here ever since we opened," John says.
In Westboro, Elie Sakhat follows his brothers’ example, building return customers as he greets his new neighbors. Many of them work in Metrowest’s business parks and live nearby. While it’s a challenge to learn all the new names and faces, Elie says, many Metrowest customers know El Basha by reputation - and its Route 9 location is easy to find.
At Haiku, a younger crowd is more interested in watching Phan make sushi. "They’re not so interested in chatting with the owner," John observes. But sushi fans, like El Basha customers, share a demand for quality.
Customers come before ego
High-style diners have a right to expect outstanding food and excellent service, says Chris Rovezzi. "For a chef to succeed, he’d better take care of his customers, not his ego," he says.
While he’s gratified at the raised profile of chefs as a result of the Food Network and competitions such as Best Chefs of Worcester, Rovezzi notes that diners have grown more demanding too. "Have you ever gone into Wal-Mart and complained that the lighting isn’t bright enough, it’s too warm or cold inside or the music is too loud?" he asks. "People do that all the time in restaurants."
"I like the challenge of getting the business up and running," he explains. "Once it’s a routine, I start looking for other challenges." That’s what spurred him to expand, buying the former Tiano’s restaurant on Grove Street in Worcester and more recently, a former pub in Rutland. Now Rovezzi directs chefs at all three locations and is frequently found in the kitchen in Worcester.
"What really gets me jazzed is pleasing people with my food," he says. "I love what I’m doing and knowing it makes other people happy is what keeps me going."
Margaret LeRoux is a freelance writer. She can be reached at mleroux@charter.net
WBJ Web Partners
Most Recent
Most Recent
0 Comments