Slowly and without a great deal of fanfare, the Levy Restaurants group is beginning to define, and symbolize, Chicago cuisine.
Thanks in large part to its Specialty Concessions division, which has grown mightily in the last three years, Levy Restaurants are all over Chicago`s culinary map, from luxury dining at Spiaggia to sandwiches-to-go at McCormick Place. And just about everything in between.
Consider: A conventioneer in town for four days might grab a few morning and noon meals at McCormick Place, participate in a company-sponsored banquet on Navy Pier, lunch at Cafe Brauer while visiting the zoo, see a play at the Goodman Theatre (with a pre-theater nosh in the Rehearsal Room) and eat post- trade-show dinners at Bistro 110 and/or Blackhawk Lodge. The opinion he subsequently forms on Chicago`s food ultimately will trace back to two brothers: Larry and Mark Levy.
When the warm weather returns to stay, the exposure increases. Cart-side concessions along Navy Pier. The specialty restaurants and concessions at Arlington International Racecourse. The concessions at the World Music Theatre. The Friendly Confines Cafe in Wrigley Field, the Stadium Club in Comiskey Park and luxury-suites catering at both ballparks. This year`s Western Open. And all the food service at Ravinia Festival.
Summertime, and the livin` is Levy.
How did it get this way?
”At the same time we were opening all our restaurants in the `70s and
`80s, we started at the original Comiskey Park,” says chairman Larry Levy.
”And then we added Ravinia. And what we learned is that we had a wonderful application of our restaurant skills, which allowed us to bring restaurant-quality experiences to places where nobody expected them.”
That translated into such unexpectedly upscale offerings as hardwood-grilled ahi tuna and gourmet pizzas at Ravinia; prime rib and lasagna at Arlington International; and tuna salad dijon on whole wheat pita, pasta salad and animal fries-animal-shaped french fries-at Cafe Brauer in Lincoln Park Zoo.
”People really love what we do in these areas,” Levy says, and he has the figures to prove it.
While the restaurant market has been dicey, the concession business has been dazzling. Levy Restaurants has doubled its sales in the last three years, the growth fueled almost entirely by the Specialty Concessions division. That growth, in turn, has fueled speculation that the brothers Levy might just ease out of the restaurant business and stick to high-end concessions.
Not a chance, Larry Levy says.
”The backbone, the heart and soul of our company, is our restaurants,”
he says. ”The reason we`re good at concessions is because we think like restaurateurs. When there are 500 people coming to eat at the Stadium Club (in Comiskey Park), we know we have to give them a restaurant experience. They`re not a captive audience; they`re not gonna come back unless we make it great.” Duplicating the restaurant experience-or coming as close to it as external limitations allow-is the operative philosophy at the Specialty Concession venues.
That`s especially important, Levy says, for luxury-suite customers at sports stadiums. ”From a financial standpoint,” Levy says, ”what enables stadiums to be financed is the presale of skyboxes. Skybox owners are what builds the new stadiums. So how good should the food be for those people?
Everywhere we`ve been, when skybox renewals come up, they`ve all rolled right over. That shows you`re taking care of them.
”All the people who work in these venues with us are restaurant people,” Levy says. ”We train them in the restaurants. We now have a rule that anybody who wants to come and run a major specialty concession has to come out of a very busy restaurant first.”
Thus the first general manager of Bistro 110, Bill Wilson, is now general manager of The Levy Restaurants` biggest specialty concession-the food service at McCormick Place.
Levy Specialty Concessions has been running the food at McCormick Place since last April. ”The first year has been a real learning experience,”
Wilson says. ”We had no records to work off, so every show was a new experience.
”And every show is completely different,” he says. ”It`s literally like opening a new restaurant every time a show comes in. At the radiologists` convention, they want upscale food; at the auto show, I can put out 100 items and I`ll still only sell hot dogs and pizza. At the Consumer Electronics Show, it`s an upscale, international crowd, and we add dim sum and California rolls. ”We can`t always provide the same things as a sit-down, table-service restaurant, but we can add more variety and a fresher product,” Wilson says. ”A little more than your generic hot dog and pizza.”
Even the hot dogs and pizzas are upscale at McCormick Place. In a brilliant move, Levy Restaurants brought in Gold Coast Dogs, one of the city`s best hot-dog chains, to handle the hot dog and burger business (actually, Levy prepares the dogs; Gold Coast lends its name and expertise). The pizza is Lorenzo`s (a reference to Larry Levy), but it`s really Connie`s Pizza. The coffee, espresso and cappuccino is by Starbucks.
”One of the things we wanted to do at McCormick Place,” Levy says, ”is offer the best of Chicago. We think Gold Coast Dogs has great hot dogs, so we put them into the fast-food area. And we thought that Starbucks coffee would be one of the great things we could have at McCormick Place, and it`s really been one of the biggest hits; you`d be shocked at how many Starbucks espressos and cappuccinos we sell.”
There`s plenty of Levy at McCormick Place, too. Across from the Gold Coast Dogs area, there`s an Eadie`s Kitchen, a downscaled version of Levy`s Sears Tower property, serving salads, sandwiches and pizza. There`s a cafeteria-style room that essentially is a D.B. Kaplan`s, offering deli sandwiches (though not the hundred-plus choices offered at Water Tower Place, where the original Kaplan`s sits).
On the showroom floors, large portable carts are set up along the east wall. There will be a Gold Coast Dogs cart, followed by a Starbucks cart, D.B. Kaplan cart, Dos Hermanos (Mexican treats) cart, and so on. At the American Meat Institute Show, Wilson set up a Taste of Chicago street that was more like a Taste of Levy-several Levy restaurants represented in a row, behind a city-street facade.
The food-service mix varies, Wilson says-sometimes within a single show.
”In some shows, we do more than $1 million in food-service business in 10 days,” he says. ”Other shows, we do a quarter-million in three, four days. You`ve got to react quickly in those shows, adding in those areas that are most effective, closing down the ones that are not.”
Levy says that virtually all his company`s near-future growth will come from specialty concessions. He doesn`t rule out opening new restaurants, but says it won`t happen anytime soon. ”Opening restaurants has become a totally impossible business from the standpoint of what the risks and rewards are,”
he says. ”In our opinion, we`d be taking enormous risks against not only too much competition but very good competition.
”Chestnut Street Grill was the first restaurant outside of California to serve charcoal-grilled fish,” he says, ”and now you can`t find a restaurant that doesn`t serve charcoal-grilled fish. And there is Italian cuisine from every region of Italy available. The niches have become micro-niches. So why should we do that, when we have this wonderful other area where we can thrive and grow?
”But we`re committed to making our existing restaurants as good as they possibly can be,” Levy adds. ”We just remodeled D.B. Kaplan`s, we remodeled Randall`s and made it into Blackhawk Lodge, we brought chef Paul Bartolotta to Spiaggia. We`re going to constantly challenge ourselves in those restaurants; we`re just not going to open a lot more until the competitive conditions are sensible.”
In the meantime, there are more concession worlds to conquer-beyond those in Chicago.
”We`re doing a big project in Charlotte (S.C.),” Levy says. ”A new Bistro 110 there, high-end concessions for their symphony and theater, a health-club cafe, a high-end fast-food court and banquet-hall food service-all in the same complex.
”And we`re in the finals for just about every new stadium that`s being built; because of our success at Wrigley and Comiskey and Arlington, we`ve become the skybox specialists in the country.”
There`s another advantage, Levy says, to being a skybox specialist.
”When a major sporting event takes place, chances are we`ve got really great seats,” Levy says. ”We`re getting around.”
