Wednesday, June 13, 2007
New downtown restaurants are hoping students have a taste for unique foods.
Owners of Genovese Restaurant, 941 Massachusetts St., and Ingredient, 947 Massachusetts St., said they can be successful in the crowded Lawrence restaurant market if residents and hungry students, are willing to sample their cuisines.
“That is the most important part, good service and quality food,” said Subarna Bhattachan, who owns Genovese along with Alejandro Lule and Armando Paniagua. “If we don’t have a good product then it is pointless.”
Bhattachan said his restaurant, located in the former Mass St. Deli, features a northern Italian cuisine, serving a variety of fresh and dry pastas for $10 to $12, as well as salads for $6, pizzas for $10 to $12 and entrees such as rib eye steaks and salmon dishes from $14 to $25.
Bob Schumm, owner of Buffalo Bob’s Smokehouse, 719 Massachusetts St., and the former owner of Mass St. Deli, said he has already sampled Genovese’s cuisine and enjoyed it. He said he sold his restaurant to the new owners because “they made me an offer I couldn’t refuse.”
While Schumm said he thought the new owners would be successful, he said additional downtown restaurants would crowd an already saturated market.
“It’s going to be very difficult for everyone to do as well as they want,” he said.
Bhattachan said Genovese’s owners researched the market and plan to control their labor and food costs.
“You have to do your homework correctly,” he said.
Bhattachan said he will rely on word-of-mouth advertising and walk-up traffic to make Genovese a success. Bhattachan also owns La Parrilla, 814 Massachusetts St., and Zen Zero, 811 Massachusetts St.
He said more than half of his 50 employees are University students, but Bhattachan said the most important thing owners need to do in order to be successful is be willing to work at any time, even upwards of 100 hours a week.
The restaurant’s hours are from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Sunday through Wednesday and until 11 p.m. from Thursday to Sunday.
Steve Kerner is one of the owners of Ingredient Restaurant, which will open either Friday or Saturday in the building that once housed Qdoba. Kerner said the three keys to attracting enough customers to a restaurant were the freshness of its food, the restaurant’s atmosphere and the price.
Ingredient customers can choose five from more than 80 ingredients to customize their salads or pizzas, which range in price from $7.50 to $11.
Kerner said customers will order their food through a counter like a fast-food restaurant, but a server will bring their orders to them with regular china and silverware like a sit-down restaurant. He called it a “gourmet fast casual restaurant.”
“It’s different,” he said. “It’s not your average fare.”
Kerner, who has experience in restaurants and catering in Kansas City, said all of his ingredients would be brought in from Kansas City markets and from some local farmers.
“Whatever they have growing we’ll bring in as special ingredients,” he said.
With a philosophy of freshness and a variety of ingredients such as caramelized almonds, pine nuts and grilled pineapple, Kerner said Ingredient would fit in with the Lawrence attitude toward food.
“We think it’s the perfect market for it,” Kerner said.
He said most of his 25 employees are University students. Ingredient’s hours are from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m., during the week and until 10 p.m., on weekends.
—Edited by Ben Smith
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