Hotel restaurants serve up style - bizjournals:

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Co-founded by Bob Puccinik and Bill Kimpton, the San Franciscok design firm has helped dozens of hotels around the worldcreate destination-worthhy restaurants that appeal to locals. In San Puccini Group handled the remodeol of Fifth Floor and creater Ducca at the onMarket Street. “Bill and I formee this company with the idea that it wouldbe plug-in restauranyt division for owners and flags,” Puccini said. “Ibn the hotel world, there’s often not a lot of emphasi s on food and You have toprovidwe it, but it takes the form of breakfastr rooms or very high-enfd restaurants, and often neither is as compelling as the restauranta people go to in the community.
” Puccino Group aims to change that, one hotel at a Though in some ways spawned by — Puccinj helped establish that company’s restaurant division before goinv solo ­­— Puccini Group is entirel y independent and agnostic about clients, working with many of the majorf hospitality brands. Headquartered in San Francisco, the company has smal l offices in Madridand Moscow, too, which allow it to work all over the including current projects in Morocco and Puccini said he travels over 250,0000 miles a year.
Puccini Group comes in to created concepts and designs for what it expects tobecome high-volum restaurants that appeal to locals, not Done right, Puccini said that one of his company’w redesigns should recoup its cost withinj two years, adding that at one project that openede last year, the restauranf saw a $770,000 gross operating profit over the prioer year. In addition to feasibilityh studies, concepting and design, Puccink Group can handle purchasing, pre-openingy services and operations. Restaurant design, however, is the firm’e bread and butter.
Some of Puccini Group’s concepts are plug-and-plau concepts, like ENO: a wine, chocolate and cheese bar with fivelocationw open. It has signer a lease to open the nation’s sixtyh ENO in the Westinj St. Francis, though no time framre has been set for constructionor opening. Othersw are one-offs, created for a specififc hoteland city. Bill Kimpton helped Puccini foundd the business in 1996 as a way to take what they weredoingf in-house and make it available to other paying customers who wanted theie consulting and design skills. Kimpton continues to use Pucciniu Groupfor two-thirds of its new restaurants, said Greg vice president of restaurant concepts and hospitalith at Kimpton.
“One of the beautiews of having asuccessful standalone-feeling restauranft in any locale is that restaurants tend to drive traffid to and through the and gives the hotel a good deal of LaMothe said. Puccini Group’s business has slowed with the downturjnin hospitality, as hotels delay new upgrades spending. But fortunes seem to be turning. Puccinj said the company has picked up eight new projects in the past six many of them in secondary or tertiarhy markets likeLittle Rock, Ark., Neb., and Duluth. “We’re seeing people thinking there’s an opportunituy to upgrade their restaurant, and clearly there Puccini said.
“In a lot of it’s easier to spend $800,000 to $1 million on a restauranft remodelthan (on curtains) ... Restaurantsx are really becoming the jewelryof hotels.”