sandwichking

Thank you very much for having me on, it’s been my pleasure. I look forward to reading, answering questions and being part of future conversations on e-gullet.

As you can probably figure out, we have a lot of foodies that come in to Starwich and usually target these lux ingredients. Overall, however, these ingredients tend to do very well with foodies and non-foodies as well. For instance, I was really surprised on the amount of truffles we sold last month. Many of the people coming had never had truffles before and wanted to try them for the first time. Plenty of these customers had never had an outlet available to them to try such items, but at Starwich we have become that outlet for them. I think we will always continue to introduce new lux ingredients to our guests. On a side note we have had a Foie sandwich in the past that sold exceptionally well.

No plans yet for JFK or LGA; hopefully soon, the problem with places like JFK and LGA is that spaces rarely become available...or at least good ones. Woo-hoo!!! That's good news, indeed. Any plans to expand to LGA or JFK? Those are my usual ports of call, so I sure hope so! ←

Hi Matthew, We’re very excited to be a part of the new airline food trend that’s growing. Currently as many of you know, most national flights don’t offer food, and the food options at airports haven’t grown with the trend of how people are eating. People are eating better and paying more attention to what they eat. As a result, higher-quality restaurant chains have started to pop up, but airport food options haven’t changed with the times. I’ve been in lots of airports where you can’t find a quality meal. If you’re like me, you either get some fruit, fly home hungry, or get something that you’re not completely satisfied with. Starwich will fill that void for travelers who want to eat healthy, quality food on board or in the airport. Currently, we don’t plan to increase pricing at airports. It’ll remain the same as at our retail outlets.

Hi Ron, We feel our pricing is generous for the quality that our customers receive. We’re very competitive with restaurants that charge a similar price but don’t serve as high-quality a product. We’re very satisfied with our growth and the consumer response. I think the growth proves that we can make a go of it charging only $8.95.

Hi Allister, One key to having a multi-unit operation is to have centralized purchasing to track and control costs. We set aside between 20-25% of each store for storage and prep. We have a separate facility where we can order bulk amounts of certain supplies (such as paper goods) that can be stored in a central location. Because we buy very-high quality ingredients, and lots of organic ingredients, we’re a little higher in food costs than your typical QSR. However, they aren’t as high as a restaurant or hotel.

Hello! All of our sandwiches are toasted and are served warm. There are certain things we do that are seasonal items such as soups in the wintertime which help satisfy those looking for something hot. We get different requests daily for new and inventive sandwiches and salads, and our goal is to accommodate every request. Since we encourage our guests to create their own sandwiches and salads, our staff is prepared to fulfill almost all the requests that come in. Certainly a Croque Monsieur or Madame is something we could happily do.

Hi Karen, I agree, the rising cost of packaging is quite a challenge. We’re always on the look out for an affordable and environmentally sound ways to wrap our sandwiches and salads. It’s a continuous battle to get better pricing. At this point we try to lock in purveyors by buying larger quantities which always helps with cost.

The below numbers should read 1,200 to 4,000 sq ft. The measurement of our Wall Street store is 1,600 sq ft. and this is the size we are going to keep moving forward. Sorry for the confusion! Hey, Spiro! Like Mike, I'm excited to be getting a Starwich in my neighborhood (UES) in the (near?) future. I have a question to add to his - will the uptown joints differ in any way from the ambience you've worked to create further downtown? As you know, the UES is pretty residential, and I would imagine that most of your weekday traffic would be stay-at-home parents with kids in tow and self-employed, freelancer types (much like what I already find at, say, DTUT on 2nd Avenue). In light of this, do you have any plans to tweak the design of the shops to accomodate a higher volume of stroller traffic and loads of laptops? Any plans for mid-afternoon story hour type activities? ← ←

Hey Steve, You are absolutely right; salads are a big part of our business – they constitute about 40% of our sales. Many people choose salads as a lighter alternative to sandwiches. As I said earlier, a great sandwich starts with bread. For a salad, it’s the greens. Crisp, fresh, flavorful greens lay the foundation for hearty and delicious salad. Salads are often a popular because people feel they are better able to monitor what they eat better because the bulk of it is crisp veggies. However, for a salad to satisfy and satiate, you need to add proteins like meats, fish, cheese and tofu.

Hi Chris, The thing I notice when I dine out is cleanliness, which is a big deal for me. I believe the appearance of a restaurant translates into how well maintained it is and if after years of being open, I like to see if they are still taking the same care in their overall appearance. I also like to watch what is going on with the staff during down time. I observe how the waiters, cooks, etc conduct themselves; I look to see if they are joking around, of if are they taking their job seriously. The easiest thing to fix in many restaurants is that too many establishments focus on just the food and not the overall experience. Focus should also be placed on the ambience, the music, and the lighting (but of course not at the expense of the food). These things can be changed easily by ensuring the right music is playing at the right level, the host or hostess is friendly and accommodating and so on. These elements lend themselves to the diners experience and all contribute to the impression they take away with them at the end of the meal.

Hello Russell, Our number one focus is on maintaining quality which is really the driving force behind what we set out to do. We are committed to keeping true and consistent to this. We feel that too often companies loose sight of their original plan as they expand. We intend that by the time store #100 opens we will still be providing high quality, unique, fresh ingredients, with great service and a great overall experience for our guests.

On average we have a pretty even split of create your own versus signature creations. We have not had many problems with our production from those who are creating their own salads and sandwiches. I think that often the first time it takes our guests a bit longer to decide what they want but after their initial visit they are comfortable with the system and really appreciate the variety. Thanks Spiro. As a follow up to my original question, how much percentage of business do you see from the pre-set specialty sandwiches and salads versus the create-your-owns? Are those numbers different during lunch time than from dinner? And have you witnessed any production issues related to customer confusion or indecisiveness with the long ingredient card? ←

Hi Mike, We are moving along and hope to have stores in many different pockets throughout New York City in the next couple of years. It shouldn’t be long till you have a Starwich near home and near work!

Hi Megan, As of right now we do not have any plans for story hours but we are always open to suggestions. All of our stores vary in size, anywhere from 4,000 sq ft to 12,000 sq ft. Right now we are really happy with the layout of our Wall Street location, which is 16,000 sq ft. After experimenting with lots of different sizes the 16,000 sq ft allow for a lot of foot as well as stroller traffic. The larger locations also will allow for more leisurely lunches and will accommodate those who want to work through lunch on their laptops. Hey, Spiro! Like Mike, I'm excited to be getting a Starwich in my neighborhood (UES) in the (near?) future. I have a question to add to his - will the uptown joints differ in any way from the ambience you've worked to create further downtown? As you know, the UES is pretty residential, and I would imagine that most of your weekday traffic would be stay-at-home parents with kids in tow and self-employed, freelancer types (much like what I already find at, say, DTUT on 2nd Avenue). In light of this, do you have any plans to tweak the design of the shops to accomodate a higher volume of stroller traffic and loads of laptops? Any plans for mid-afternoon story hour type activities? ←

Hello Susan, I think the key to making a good sandwich at home is having great bread and toasting it (with the ingredients) in your oven. I really enjoy a well toasted sandwich. My favorite sandwich at the store is a toss up between the Soft Shell Crab BLT and the Pulled Duck Confit Sandwich. When making a sandwich at home I tend to use more sauces and cooked vegetables. However when I am packing for a picnic I often omit many of the sauces and use raw vegetables. I would use goat cheese or another soft cheese like Camembert as a spread in place of other sauces to avoid making the bread soggy. Another option when doing a picnic is to keep certain sauces or other ingredients on the side to add later when it is time to eat.

There are certainly more eccentric items that do not sell at the same rate as the more popular items. We would not remove an item just because it does not sell as much as others. This variety is what makes Starwich unique. Our concern for cost and desire to avoid waste drives our purchasing, however we would never compromise freshness. With so many different ingredients on the menu, how do you keep them all fresh? ← ← Thanks, Spiro. So if something isn't selling very frequently and has a short shelf life will it be removed from the menu? At what point are slower selling ingredients removed from the pantry? ←

Hello Owen, I’m not quite sure which coffee giant you are referring too – wink, wink  Because I too often have a hard time finding good coffee in other lunch places, it was important for me to ensure that our guests could get a good cup of coffee with their meal. We have chosen to link up with Illy Coffee to provide us with our coffee and espresso. Illy’s quality, attention to detail and regular calibrations of our coffee machines helps us ensure that we can provide you an excellent cup of coffee.

Hi Sandy, You are certainly right; Philadelphia has both a long sandwich history as well as a great upscale culinary scene. We are planning on opening there right after Boston and DC with the hopes that all three cities will have locations within just months of each other. We hope to have a store in your adopted city by early next year! I'm not going to digress here on whether this "disappearing middle" phenomenon--which manifests itself in many different arenas besides consumer goods--might or might not be good for American society in the long run, as that is both off-topic and would produce an interminably long and dense discussion. But given that you appear to have come up with a winning high-end sandwich shop model--I'm not surprised that the mix-and-match concept has proven to work for Starwich, as your target customers are the kind that crave variety and the new and different--I do wonder why Philadelphia seems to have dropped off your short list of early-stage expansion markets, since it had been among them (at least that was my interpretation of the information on your Web site). I am very much aware of this city's rich sandwich tradition, which is tightly bound up with its heritage as a blue-collar industrial center, and admit that both those factors and the popularity of the sandwiches in question might make entry into this market more difficult than one might suspect at first. Yet this same city also supports a quite vibrant upscale dining scene, which suggests that the audience for your product is here and maybe even receptive to it. After all, Cosí hasn't gone broke here selling decent sandwiches with good quality ingredients on unusual bread for a somewhat inflated price; by comparison, given what you offer on the mix-and-match list, $8.50 is not expensive at all. I should perhaps confess to the same sort of puzzlement the Kansas Citians who have posted here have, for similar reasons: besides being a native of that city, I have noted that both my original and adopted hometowns share world-class municipal inferiority complexes which have proven hard to shake off as both have gotten more interesting--or more comfortable with their own essences--over the years. Nonetheless, it still rankles me just a little bit that the second-largest market on the East Coast is a third-stage expansion target. ←

Hi John, After being in business for a while you get a chance to compile reports on how each item sells. Our POS system allows us to track day-to-day sales and determine what we need to order to maintain our well stocked options. With so many different ingredients on the menu, how do you keep them all fresh? ←

We absolutely try to cater to many dietary needs – that’s the great thing about having a menu with so many items and the freedom to create your own dishes. We have many items that are not always listed on the menu, such as tofu or truffles, which are either seasonal or rotating. You can always ask at our locations for tofu on your sandwich or salad. Unfortunately we do not have plans for Canada yet as we are focusing on expanding in the US right now. However, we look forward to bringing Starwich to Canada and especially Quebec.

Hi Lucy, My perfect sandwich for the top of a ski mountain would comprise of multi-grain bread with skirt steak, goat cheese, sun dried tomatoes, baby greens, and thinly chopped roasted peppers. Personally I would prepare the meat medium/medium-well even though I would prefer it medium rare, so the juices don’t make the bread too soggy.

Hi Judy, Here are some general numbers for you; the percentages vary depending upon location. On average, our numbers are: Breakfast: 15% Lunch: 45% Midday: 13% Dinner: 27% Sandwiches: 61% Salads: 39% Dine-In: 87% Catering: 13% As for what people are ordering: we have strong sales throughout our price range.

Consumer markets in general have been moving towards an hourglass shape over the past decade. Whereas the majority of the market used to be firmly in the middle, growth is now concentrated on the inexpensive end and the high end. The restaurant business has mirrored this trend, and I think it will continue to do so. So, I think the high-end of the market will continue to expand, and I think we are among the leaders of that expansion.

Hi Chris, Sandwiches aren’t the only things that have moved upscale. All aspects of restaurant QSRs appear to be moving there: salads, the level of ambiance, individual ingredients, presentation, etc. I think the fact that so many quick-casual/quick-upscale restaurants have sprung up recently shows that we are all moving in the right direction. That said, Starwich is a completely different business model from other places. The most important thing that differentiates us from other salad and sandwich concepts is our focus on mass customization. There continues to be an increase in the percentage of customized meals at Starwich.