OPM in Edmonton

[canadianintexas]

I think the reason Earls is opening all these new themes is because they've exhausted the "earls" concept. Maybe not the concept, but the name. They seem to have gotten too cocky for their own good. Their concepts and way of doing things are fundamentally sound, but they don't follow them as a whole as well as they used to. There are too many chiefs and egos floating around. Their USA expansion so far has been a virtual flop. They have tried stores in Texas and Arizona, and a long time ago in San Francisco. I can only speak from experience with the Texas location, but it was half-assed to say the least.

The location, to start off with, was across the street from a hospital, and beside a light-rail transit station in a stretch mall type of setting with 50% of the surrounding businesses vacant or out of business. Needless to say it wasn't a typical location that you'd find an Earls up in Canada. The exterior of the building was horrendous. It was frequently said to us that it looked like a BBQ restaurant or a Denny's from the outside. There was a striped blue & off white awning along the front of the building & a 3 ft tall red/orange neon sign that read "EARLS RESTAURANT" in block letters exactly the way it looks as I just typed it. It wasn't in the typical "earls" font or signage. If you were to pick up the entire building and drop it in a similar location somewhere in say Edmonton, Calgary, or Vancouver - where the earls name is extremely well known - people driving by would probably not associate it with being an "earls" of the chain they are familiar with. They would in all likelihood assume it was a different type of restaurant with the same name and wonder how long it would take for a copyright lawsuit of the name to be brought against it.

The inside - they blew around $750,000 on renovations (it wasn't built from the ground up like a lot of other Earls). Apparently this was how all the earls were going to be made into through updating of the older restaurants. It was very nice inside but the interior did not match the exterior. People that did stop and come in expected a "Denny's" when they pulled up, but saw a damn near Hy's Steakhouse on the inside. It wasn't quite that swanky, but close.

Most of the business was done during the day in the restaurant and in the bar at night. Nighttime dinner business was non-existent. I went down there with a group of ten others from other Earls throughout Alberta and BC. We had to go out and staff a place that no one knew about. The work standards of a lot of the people were extremely lax and a sense of entitlement among the people recruited was also very high. In Texas, a lot of upscale/casual restaurants have a hostess seat you, a server take your drink & food order, a runner to run the food to the table, buspeople (usually a mexican) to fill your water/iced tea and a setter to clear the table. The server checks to see how everything is and then at the end drops off your check. Not a whole lot of interaction or work being done. We expected our servers to do all of these steps themselves and not treat the bussers as second class citizens.

Consistency was also a huge problem. Manual updates went unknown for months at a time. Certain people with their egos inflicted their desires and ways of doing things on the staff and never followed up with the other staff to let them know that thye had changed something. Punctuality and attendance were brutal, but was let off with several dozen warnings before the person usually just quit. The GM was replaced barely a year into the business and replaced with the day manager who had zero experience in the position. GM turnover was huge. Four GM's in 5 years. No continuity could be achieved. Night kitchen sous-chefs were either drunk/hungover/or just plain incapable. Too much fod discounting was done in attempts to draw in customers. $5 Fridays was a popular one. The idea was to discount $5 off all steaks on Fridays in an attempt to get customers to order our steaks and see that they were the "best in Dallas". Anyone who has been to Dallas knows steakhouses are almost as prevalent as Starbuck's in Seattle. There are high end steakhouses with their own helicopter landing pads that make steak their business with professional 15 year broiler cooks making their steaks - not some 20-something punk who has only been cooking steaks for maybe 3 years. Even if we had a professional cooking just steaks, our meat was brutal as well. The best steakhouses in Dallas get their meat from Chicago, Iowa or Kansas City. Ours came from Canada by way of Scottsdale. They were shiped to us for a while by truck from Arizona, with no discernable ice/dry ice left in the shipping contianer they arrived in. One time the truck broke down and had to wait for a new truck to pick up their delivery and carry on with the trip. Somehow I doubt they had refrigeration that whole time.... Advertising was minimal at best. Not a good way to go about telling a new city about your restaurant. An example of a billboard was a huge picture of an earls fork with all but one of the tines bent back, so that it looked like a hand with one finger pointing towards something. The billboard read "This way to earls..." That was it. The fork wasn't even pointing in the right direction of the restaurant.

There was a huge group of regulars that loved the place, but if it hadn't ben for all the office buidings nearby supplying lunch business, the place would have gone under after 1 year. It was like having a location in downtown, but no walk-in or drive-past customers. After 2pm except for Friday and Saturday, business was a trickle most nights. Brunch was tried 3 different times, failing each time for the same reasons everytime, but each GM thought they had the magic to make a brunch work.

I heard the 2nd Phoenix location had a lot of the same problems. Currently there are only 2 Earls left in the USA. One in Scottsdale, AZ; and one in Denver, CO. Joey Tomatoes is going to be next to try USA expansion. They are going to be taking over six Cucina! Cucina! locations in the Seattle area and converting them to the new Joey's Mediterranean Grill concept. Guess they couldn't make Earls work, so they're going to try Joey's now.

I hear that they are going to be opening an Earls in West Edmonton Mall in the Bourbon Street section this year, but that could get shelved the way things are going with the Earls concept. Hopefully OPM and Publik don't inherit the same faults that Earls has developed.

Am I bitter? Yup.

Edited July 30, 2004 by canadianintexas (log)

[yogi]

Sounds like you spent some time working there from your reply.

No doubt, the US was a poorly executed idea. I do think that Joey's has really distanced itself from what earls was, and what they are.

Step into any Joey's now, and it is hard to believe that they were once the same company.

It will be interesting to see what OPM brings to the Edmonton market, and no doubt the West Edmonton mall location for Earls will be intriguing. I have seen the sign advertising it's arrival.

Anyone know when it is supposed to open?

[merlin]

canadianintexas:

Thanks for the detailed post above concerning the ill-fated efforts of Earls' to expand in the Lone Star State. Made for an interesting read.

By the way, dropped back into Publik a couple of week-ends ago. Hot, hot, hot Saturday afternoon but the place was empty. I like the look but I am not sure that it is going to make a go of it. The adjacent Earls' was packed but it,"death valley days". More staff than clientele.

I will have to take a run down to South Common and take a look at the new Joey's. Am told that the interior is quite striking. They have come a long way from all that circus like schlock that used to dominate their interiors.

[jamiemaw]

Canadianintexs,

Interesting post and it underscores that some of the elements that have made Earls, Joey's, Saltlik and The Cactus Club such hits in Canada were missing from their Dallas foray:

1. Great real estate selection with daytime footfall (ie.e office/retail) traffic and convenience for dinner drive-to's.

2. Critical Mass. Earls is the acknowledged concept leader in distribution efficiency (ie.e one consolidated delivery per store per day). But that efficiency requires a population of stores in a concentrated area.

3. Brand ID, which they apparently didn't carry out in Dallas. That brand ID ius so strong in Canada that many consumers are actually aware of their high service standards, organic produce program and excellent wine lists.

4. A labour pool that responds to their excellent training programs.

For these reasons, Joey's Washington expansion seemingly has a much stronger likelihood for success.

By the way, to be fair, Earls has one location in Denver and two in Scottsdale--at Scottsdale Road and Camelback, and up on Pima. The latter location had a near-death experience several years ago when an entrance ramp to the freeway threatened to bisect their patio. But business has recovered.

Interestingly, it's The Keg that is making spectacular inroads in the States, especially in Texas where they are expanding quickly.

I think that your general point is well taken, that Earls has probably run dry for top quality expansion opportunities/locations in Western Canada, and so is developing new brands such as Publik and OPM, which as well as sounding lke opium, could also mean "other people's money."

Interstingly, when we host visiting food media and industry types from abroad (ie. frequently), most insist on visiting Earls and The Cactus Club. That's because they do a lot of things very well, and with The Keg and PF Chang's, number amongst the very top concept restaurant chains in the world.

Cheers,

Jamie

[canadianintexas]

Yes I did work at the Dallas location. Execution was not to the Canadian standards at all. Pretty much the red-headed stepchild syndrome with out of site/out of mind mixed in. In Texas, without any significant advertising, whether it was word of mouth or otherwise, the name "earls" made people think of BBQ joints. Huge in Texas, and the south - but generally not the type of restaurant an Earls restaurant in Canada would be.

As far as I know and from what we were told, the second Scottsdale location is closed as well. The Pima Road spot is still there, and absorbed some of the staff of the other store. The location in West Edmonton Mall is supposed to be opening around November or December barring any unexpected delays.

I have been to a couple of the new Joey's. The downtown Edmonton location on Jasper Ave was dramatically improved from how it used to look. The menu and decor are great. If I had the choice, I would rather eat there than at Earls. I was offered the chance to work at the new Joey's location(s) in the Pacific Northwest. I had seriously considered it, but I have a fiancee down here and I'd prefer to stay in Big D. Also, I'd like to see how it runs first before possibly going through the same thing that happened here. I know one of the GM's that is in charge of the expansion/changeover. I have no doubts about his ability to do his job - it's just that the things I saw down here mean that I doubt the higher-ups dedication to the job that could submarine all their hard work.

The Keg is doing very well down here although, it is perceived as a midlevel steakhouse, I guess the same way it is up in Canada. It opened it's first DFW location maybe a year after Earls opened and has expanded with more success as well. Another Canadian chain doing very well here in the USA is Boston Pizza. They opened about the same time we did and have expanded to about 20 locations already throughout the USA, with expectations to double that this year. They even have one in Mexico. Now they just need to bring Tim Horton's further south and I'd be in heaven.

[jamiemaw]

Canadianintexas,

You're right--Scottsdale Highlands closed a month ago. My daughter, who attends ASU, will be crushed.

Jamie

[yogi]

Correct.

The second earls location in Arizona has closed, and is no more. Again, a challenging location seems to have been one of the reasons for the demise.