Chains must think like locals to survive in R.I.

Our local restaurants are the envy of foodies nationwide. Tourism officials have been fielding calls on a daily basis from meeting planners and journalists who are coming to visit our state to scout out upcoming events. One of the initial requests from these out-of-towners is to dine out locally. Our reputation for culinary creativity is such that high on the list of attractions is the state’s restaurant scene.
This reputation as a dining Mecca is not lost on those in the food-service business nationally. For those whose trade is development and new markets for major restaurant chains, their challenge is somewhat different. How does a national restaurant concept compete with the variety of unique owner-operated – and in many cases chef-operated – eateries on Restaurant Row?
The answer may lie in ourselves. As we travel, we find favorite places that while capturing the moment of a memorable vacation linger in our memories. When we travel, we often find that the national restaurant scene in other travel destinations consists of chains. And as we talk with friends back home about our experience, we qualify our favorable reviews, saying, “It was very good … for a chain restaurant.”
But this may not be giving ourselves the credit we deserve. If we who are spoiled by the many choices we have to dine at our local one-of-a-kind spots have a positive impression of a national chain, it is probably doing a superior job.
Two groups who are well-known in other parts of the nation where Rhode Islanders travel are coming to our state. One is already here, the other recently announced its first location.
Bonefish Grill is now building out in the Chapel Hill complex near Garden City in Cranston. The seafood restaurant’s closest locations are in New York and New Jersey. Bonefish has a popular eatery located in that Rhode Island outpost, Naples, Fla. Located in South Naples inside the Naples Bay resort, the eatery is a favorite among our state’s snowbirds. Bonefish’s model appears to be similar to other chains that have done well in the Ocean State, such as Flemings Steakhouse and Carrabba’s Italian Grill – itself a popular spot in the Naples area. The local management is empowered to run the restaurant as though it were a stand-alone, with menu choices and community-involvement decisions made without waiting for word from some far-flung, corporate headquarters. Recently the menu at the Naples Bonefish featured crab-crusted pompano, a staple on Florida restaurant menus. Just for comparison, I checked the menu online for the Bonefish in East Brunswick, N.J., to see if the pompano had made its way up Interstate 95. It had not. There were signature dishes such as the Boom Boom shrimp appetizer on the menu this night, but a special there was wood-grilled Atlantic Swordfish over Pumpkin Ravioli, which fit an Atlantic Seaboard restaurant.
Recently opened on busy Newport Avenue in Rumford is Persy’s Place. The popular breakfast spot has several locations on Cape Cod and in southeastern Massachusetts. Persy’s, which retrofitted a classic diner on Route 114 near Town Wine, insists it is “not a chain, but a few good restaurants run by family and friends.” The family is the Heston family. Newt Heston opened the first Persy’s in 1982 with the concept of breakfast as a special occasion.
The menu is full of comfort foods, many, says Heston, from the kitchen of his mother, known as “Grammy Bob,” who would prepare for family and friends a bountiful breakfast. Open for breakfast and lunch only, breakfast at Persy’s comes with a hot slab of grilled cornbread and a portion of Boston-baked beans. This year, an executive of a locally popular chain received national recognition for his efforts. The National Restaurant Association earlier this year honored Bahjat Shariff, senior vice president of operations and operating partner for Panera Bread/Howley Bread Group, headquartered in Cumberland, with its 2012 Faces of Diversity American Dream Award.
Shariff came from Lebanon at age 18 and started working at a KFC as a part-time cook. When he left that company, Shariff was market manager responsible for several restaurants with $25 million in annual sales.
Shariff’s career continued at other national chains, including Au Bon Pain. When the Howleys acquired the franchise for the new Panera Bread concept in 2000, Shariff opened the first Panera location in Rhode Island, in Cranston. Today Howley Bread Group is the fourth-highest-volume franchisee in the Panera Bread system. Howley has plans to open additional restaurants in the state as well as in Connecticut and Massachusetts, forecasting a total of 33 locations by 2015.
The comparatively small number of chains that do succeed locally have to be at the top of their game to do so. The management of such places would agree wholeheartedly. And the secret of their success just may be a mindset that even though the name over their door may be duplicated hundreds of times across the nation, the local management and chefs welcome us who dine out often as though it were their one and only place. •


Bruce Newbury’s food and wine talk-radio show is heard Saturdays and Sundays locally on WPRV-AM 790, on radio throughout New England and on the Stitcher mobile application. He can be reached by email at
bruce@brucenewbury.com.

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