BusinessWest

A Mexican Adventure:

Mama Iguana’s Was Designed to Create Memorable Experiences

It’s a Family Fare:

Tucker’s Serves American Cuisine the Old-fashioned Way

Sea Worthy:

Zoë’s Fish House in Hadley Gets Fresh with Its Customers

Off the Menu:

A list of the region’s finest restaurants

Mama Iguana’s Was Designed to Create Memorable Experiences

Talk about fun.
In fact, that’s exactly what Claudio Guerra did as he described how and why he created Mama Iguana’s in Springfield just north of the Basketball Hall of Fame. The Mexican restaurant, which opened last June, is a much larger version of the Northampton eatery with the same name and has been so successful, there was standing room only on the patio all last summer.
Hand-painted pieces of original Mexican artwork in vivid colors surround a large, gleaming rectangular bar in the semi-enclosed outdoor spot that seats 100 and has an adjacent dining area where the mood is lively, thanks in part to lights in a rainbow of bright hues.
The fun-filled atmosphere that Guerra created continues inside the three-story restaurant, which was designed to embody the spirit that is at the heart and soul of the six other eateries he owns. “We really try. It doesn’t happen by accident — it’s a labor of love,” Guerra said as he talked to BusinessWest about a lifetime spent in the restaurant business, which began when he was about 10 years old and worked as a coat checker in his father’s Long Island eatery.
Over the course of several hours, Guerra unveiled the secrets of his past and present success. The journey hasn’t always been easy, and when the recession hit in 2008, he had to reinvent the way he did business. But laughter and openness are givens for him, as he enjoys life, truly loves fun, and is always on the hunt for a new spot to open another restaurant.
In addition to owning and operating Mama Iguana’s in Springfield and Northampton, Guerra owns Spoleto’s in Northampton and East Longmeadow and the Paradise City Tavern, Pizzeria Paradiso, and Spoleto’s Express, all in Northampton.
Although they encompass different moods, Mama Iguana’s was designed “to be super-casual for super fun. It has the right price and environment for today’s economic reality and is a place where people can feel comfortable and relax,” Guerra said.
It boasts the largest selection of tequila brands in the Northeast, and more than 200 bottles of high-quality, 100% blue agave sit behind the bar. Many come from small microbreweries Guerra discovered in Mexico, and people can join a Tequila Club, which allows them to keep track of the varieties they have tried; attend sessions of the resaurant’s Tequila University, which features owners or speakers from the breweries; and/or make reservations for tequila dinners, with a menu of foods matched with appropriate tequilas.
Guerra did a major renovation of the the interior and exterior of the former home of Onyx Fusion Bar and Restaurant (the old Basketball Hall of Fame). He felt it lacked warmth, so he spent countless hours and a significant amount of money changing the lighting to make the space more intimate; it now includes enormous, wrought-iron candelabras. He also brought artists in from Mexico and California to create original works that include panels, papier-mâché sculptures, and paintings to insure it had an authentic atmosphere.
Oversized imitation skeleton heads also abound. They reflect the Mexican Day of the Dead celebration held to honor deceased relatives, and include two skeleton figures seated on a full-size motorcyles across from the stairwell between the first and second floors.
Guerra also did away with the TV screens behind the bar (although major sporting events are still broadcast on a large pull-down screen) and replaced it with “fun artwork.” Many pieces were purchased on shopping expeditions in Mexico, including the head of an angel, which weighs about 150 pounds and is almost six feet in height.
Guerra points out a large wall mural painted by an artist he brought in from San Francisco. It’s a replica of a carving from Mayan ruins, and has four gods seated in a canoe with a day and night paddler, meant to represent the cycle of life.
“When people walk in, they know this is not a chain,” he said, adding that the three floors of the building often accommodate entirely different types of parties.
“We can have a bachelorette party on one floor, a doctor’s convention on another, and a sporting event on the main floor,” said Bill Collins, director of Operations. “We turned this into a place that is beautiful and festive and took advantage of its great infrastructure.”

Dedicated Commitment
However, it takes far more than lively décor to make an eatery a success, and Guerra has a recipe with many ingredients.
The most critical — along with exceptional food and atmosphere — is the way the customer is treated. “I haven’t met a person who hasn’t had the experience of walking into a restaurant and being seated at a less-than-desirable table when other tables were available,” Guerra said.
It’s something he won’t stand for, and says he does not believe in seating people so the wait staff have the opportunity to serve approximately the same number of clients. Instead, he rotates their shifts between the most popular tables, and says it is up to them to ask co-workers for help if it’s needed. “My philosophy is all about accomodating the customer, and they should always be seated at the best possible table,” he said. “We understand the art of pleasing people.”
Since he believes the philosophy and resulting behavior in any business must come from the top, he plays an active role in demonstating the principle. Recently a little girl seated with her family of six asked him if she could order a glass of Orangina. He told her they didn’t have it, but asked her to “hold on” for a few minutes. “I ran to the nearest store and bought a bottle. I enjoy doing fun things for people.”
Although he acknowledges it’s not possible to accommodate every request, “on any given night at Spoleto’s we are cooking dishes we haven’t had on the menu for 20 years because a customer asked for them,” he said.
Everyone who works for Guerra is schooled in the belief that it is their job to make the customer feel welcome. He says the difference between a memorable experience and one that leaves a person unsatisfied occurs the moment they are greeted at the door.
“When a person walks in and looks at the waitperson, the experience is won or lost in a millisecond according to whether the person looks miserable or cheerful,” he said. “I have spent my life studying the way a person approaches a table. It’s part of the social structure of a good restaurant, and although anyone can learn to serve food, not everyone has the ability to make people feel welcome.”
Guerra says he has wait staff who have worked for him for 10 years and never had a complaint. “It’s not because they didn’t make mistakes, which is especially true for a high-pressure hosting position,” he said. “You can tell the customer there is a 45-minute wait in a way that will make them laugh. But it’s an art. The science is at the back of the house.”
That’s where the food is prepared, and every night the Mexican moles, salsa, and other sauces at Mama Iguana’s are tasted by the chef, cook, manager, and Collins when he is on site before they are served. Guerra says the word ‘mole’ means to chop, and every village in Mexico has their own version of the sauce.
“Our moles are the heart of our kitchen and have incredibly complex flavors with at least 25 ingredients, which can includes seeds, nuts, and dried peppers,” he said. They are used in a variety of ways, and a dish called Holy Mole with pulled chicken, pork, and sautéed vegetables is topped with three mole sauces. The menu is Tex-Mex, and prices average between $10 and $14 for an entrée.

Business Lesson
Guerra was born in Germany and immigrated to the U.S at age 3 with his family. His father found work as a waiter in New York City before opening a French eatery on Long Island. A short time later, his mother opened a German restaurant, and then his parents opened an Italian restaurant together.
Guerra was always in the restaurants, and graduated from checking coats to busing tables to dishwashing and eventually cooking. After graduating from high school, he served as an apprentice to a cook in an elite French restaurant in Europe. When he returned, his father opened the Mill on the River restaurant in South Windsor, Conn., and one day when they were driving around, “we stumbled onto Northampton. Before I even got out of the car, I looked around and knew, ‘this was it,’” Guerra said.
He opened Spoleto’s there 25 years ago and said it was a success from the start. “My formula has always been simple. Treat your customers and employees the way you would want to be treated.”
Guerra continued to open new eateries, including the upscale French restauarant, Del Raye, which he turned into a pub in 2008, and they all did well until the recession hit. He had opened another Spoleto’s in East Longmeadow as well as the Northampton Mama Iguana’s in 2007, and the downturn in the economy affected business across the board. “It was extremely tough. We were struggling to survive,” he said.
During that time, a consulting company contacted him and offered to conduct a free, in-depth analysis of his restaurants. Although Guerra didn’t hire the firm to make changes, the exercise did point out a number of areas that needed improvement. “So we rolled up our sleeves and concentrated on the nuts and bolts of our predicament,” he said.
And although the Springfield Mama Iguana’s did well, the restaurant group as a whole continued to struggle to turn the numbers around until the beginning of this year, “when the lights went on and we opened our eyes.”
Guerra said he finally realized he had too much invested in liquor and food. He reduced the inventory at his restaurants by 35% and began holding weekly meetings with all of his managers. In addition, every chef and manager was given a budget and had to do a weekly cost analysis.
“I never had to think about these things before. It was very painful, but now that the systems are in place, there have been some wonderful surprises; the managers are working harder, and the employees are energized. We have given them the tools and knowledge of how to do their jobs better,” he explained, comparing the way they operated in the past to a football team with great players but without a game plan. Now, everyone is informed about the plan, and all is going well.
Guerra said he’s happy he opened Mama Iguana’s in Springfield. “It’s a great market with high visibility. People want to be able to go out to a fun environment and not spend a lot, and Mexican cuisine allows you to do that.”

Recipe for Success
Many families and businesses hold parties and meetings at Mama Iguana’s. The third floor has pull-down screens that can be used for business presentations and is a quiet spot for those who seek that atmosphere, while the other floors are more lively.
And when guests leave, they don’t have to worry about how far away they parked because a cyclist sits outside, waiting to give them a ride to their vehicle in the restaurant’s pedicab.
It’s all part of the fun, and Guerra continues to do all he can to ensure that people will have positive experiences when they visit. To him, business is about making sure the customer has — what else? — fun, along with positive memories and, in this case, a great Mexican adventure in his Mama Iguana style.

Tucker’s Serves American Cuisine the Old-fashioned Way

There are a few jobs that define Michael Anderson’s professional career as a head chef, but one that perhaps has the most significance was as a dishwasher.
Indeed, while scrubbing in the sinks at Storrowton Tavern & Carriage House in West Springfield, Anderson said he gained what he called the “building blocks” for a long legacy on the other side of the kitchen.
“I felt such a sense of camaraderie between the cooks and the waitstaff,” he told BusinessWest. “There was longevity in that kitchen — people worked there for over 30 years; it wasn’t seen as a stepping stone, where people say, ‘I’m only a waiter until I go on to a different field.’ These people were invested in it, and this was their life.”
But it wasn’t just the culinary bonhomie that attracted Anderson back then. It was the famous owner, William Kavanaugh — or ‘Tucker’ to his close friends and family — who became a mentor to the budding chef. Such was the impression made upon the young man that he said, “I knew way before I ever had a restaurant that his nickname would be its name one day.”
That day would not be in the immediate future, although Anderson said that, from the time he first put together a résumé as a chef, he knew that owning and operating was his goal. After learning the ropes on the line at Storrowton, ultimately becoming executive chef there, he catered for a few years until the call came that Yankee Candle wanted to open its own restaurant at the flagship store in South Deerfield, and the company wanted him to run the kitchen.
Opening Chandler’s Tavern in 1995, he said, was a good dry run for an aspiring restaurateur. “That was a real eye-opener,” he remembered, chuckling. “None of us quite knew what to expect. And when we first opened, we got blasted; we were doing 700 lunches a day.”
The 45-minute commute wasn’t very appetizing to Anderson, however, especially with a growing family. “It was right around the time our first daughter was born,” his wife and co-owner, Kathy, said. “He came home one day and said, ‘I quit my job.’”
The man who always wanted to own his own spot wasn’t hanging up his pots to dry, though: right down the road from their home in Westfield, Anderson had spotted a derelict building for sale on College Highway in Southwick. “It took me only a couple of days to know that this was the place for my restaurant,” he said.
Today, Tucker’s sits across the street from that spot, in a building created for the husband-and-wife restaurateurs. Sitting down with BusinessWest, the Andersons were joined by Kathy’s uncle, Evan Mattson, who is retired from his job owning an insurance agency. These days, he does the restaurant’s accounting, is the host, and rolls up his sleeves to tend bar on occasion.
The walls are cluttered with framed paintings by the couple’s children, Paige and Payton, making this truly a family affair.
But, of course, people come for the food, and there’s good reason for that. Anderson’s skills on the stove were honed over a lifetime of cooking, but they also hold the legacy of those mentors he had from his earliest days in a professional kitchen. ‘Tucker’ himself helped out in the earlier restaurant across the street, as proud as he could be, Mattson remembered.
And while the man who helped shape Anderson’s career isn’t around any longer to see his namesake thriving, he’s not far away: his portrait holds pride of place just inside the front door.

Dish Network
“I feel like I’m getting old when I say that I do things ‘old school,’ but you have to spend a lot of time to understand how the business works,” Anderson said.
“At Storrowton, I was with these guys every night on the line — you can’t learn these skills overnight,” he continued. “It takes years. And I still do things the same way now as they did then. They stuck to what they knew, and they were successful.”
While a student at Holyoke Community College studying culinary arts, Anderson said that one of his teachers was also his boss cooking at Storrowton. These lessons gave him the understanding of cooking solid fare from scratch. “Seasonally or otherwise, everything is made from your own recipes,” he said of his style. “Just like the way things used to be done.”
This level of integrity attracted the attention of the powers at Yankee Candle when they tapped him to run the kitchen at their new restaurant, and today, Anderson credits that experience as a firsthand look on how to market one’s culinary creations.
“They never stopped marketing at all,” he remembered. “Every week, there was some sort of event — not just dinner with Santa, there were Teddy Bear Teas, specials of every kind. It was fully gung-ho.”

But his only reservation was that he wanted his own kitchen, and when he saw the spot in Southwick, he said it “just clicked.”
“We didn’t have a big game plan, but we got the financing together,” he continued. “Karen was still working at MassMutual, which was a good comfort, because making a lot of money wasn’t my primary concern; I wanted to cook good food and do what I love.”
Today, Kathy — who met Michael when she was busing tables at Storrowton — serves as the events manager, front-of-house scheduler, and occasional bartender; on this day, she also pulled a shift waiting tables at lunch. She said it was easy for a few years in the first Tucker’s location to pull down both jobs, but she agreed with her husband that it wasn’t the final destination for their restaurant.
After six years in the original location, the pair invested in some developable property across the street. “We always knew that we wanted to have banquet facilities,” she said, “something that was only possible at the other spot when we weren’t open for regular dining.”

Spicing It Up
Mattson joked that his wife sees him less often now than when he was running his insurance agency. But helping to run this family restaurant gives him an equal measure of pride.
“I look at all the comments that come in,” he said, “and I can honestly tell you that, on a scale of one to five, very, very seldom are they less than 4.8, which to me means that people recognize that this is quality food, they appreciate our service, and they like the value that they’re getting.”
Added to that dining experience is what the husband and wife hoped to create from the beginning of their dream — a space for events in Southwick. Two banquet rooms seat up to 150 people, and Kathy mentioned that they see all manner of parties, from weddings and rehearsal dinners to showers and retirements.
Taking a cue from her husband’s years at Chandler’s, she said that Tucker’s has garnished its lunch and dinner menus with a regular series of special events. A wine dinner — five courses paired with different vintages — is staged four times per year (the next is expected in September), a comedy night held at similar intervals, and an increasingly popular beer dinner, with different brews paired with food. The recently opened Westfield River Brewing Co. is going to be on tap at Tucker’s — one of only a handful of eateries to feature the brand — and Kathy said the next beer dinner should have these local suds served up with the specials.
But in a tough economy, all agreed that customers are seeking value, even though the menu at Tucker’s, running the scale from burgers to filet mignon, offers dinners at all price points. Responding to that, she said that the restaurant has offered special deals through Groupon, and in the last year has been offering customers the chance to redeem Big Y’s gold and silver coins as a coupon good for half off one of two dinners or lunches, respectively.
“Think about it,” she said. “Gas stations redeem them for 20 cents off a gallon of gas, but what is that, around two dollars?”
The emphasis, however, is and always will be on the food — Michael’s passion, and the main ingredient for Tucker’s success. There will be one additional foray into commerce outside the dining room, however — to bottle and market the spices he uses in his famous butternut squash recipe.

Natural Selection
The lessons learned in the kitchen at Storrowton are evident on the pages of Tucker’s menu, as he still likes to cook traditional, American-style dishes from scratch: Yankee pot roast, chicken pot pie, crab cakes, baked cod, sirloin au poivre, chicken cordon bleu, and many more. It’s honest fare served in a no-nonsense way, he said. “If I’m cooking fish, as one example, it has to be natural, some light seasoning —  just a good, fresh product. Not too much stuff on it. Keep it simple.”
And that philosophy carries over to all aspects of the business, from a family who understands that there can be a lot of heat in the kitchen if you don’t do things the right way.
“I love to cook, but to be able to sleep at night, I want to make sure that people get what they order,” Michael said. “When regulars call me to order food, they don’t ask the price, because they know I’m not going to jab them. There’s a sense out there, maybe, that restaurants put the screws to you, but that’s not a lot of restaurateurs. There are a lot of those people who are honest businesspeople making good food.”
And across the room, the portrait of ‘Tucker’ smiled over the conversation — a lasting legacy carried on by the protégé who adopted his ideas and made them his own. In Kavanaugh’s lifetime, he was proud to see what his former dishwasher had become.

Zoë’s Fish House in Hadley Gets Fresh with Its Customers

Jim Sands says there are many things chain restaurants do that he can’t — offer deep coupon discounts, for instance.
But that’s OK, he said, as long as he focuses on what he does best — and that means serving up the freshest fish possible at Zöe’s Fish House in Hadley.
That pricing advantage that chains tout, in fact, “is why it’s so important for us to maintain quality standards. I can offer something they can’t. They’re never going to make as good a piece of fish as I will, and I guarantee that,” said Sands, explaining that he won’t charge a patron for an unsatisfactory meal — thankfully, a rare event.
“It’s marketing opportunity when someone walks out the door happy, and tells someone else,” he explained. “You can go to Applebee’s or a place like that and get swordfish or haddock, but it won’t be handled or prepared in the manner that we do.
“I make all the soups, chowder, salad dressings, sauces, right down to the ketchup, which is homemade,” he went on. “Some things I’ll buy if I can’t make it better — like mayonnaise; I can’t make that better than Hellmann’s — but our ketchup has a lot more spice and kick than Heinz, and people appreciate that. I actually started selling it by the pint and quart after people started tasting it. It kind of makes me want to go into the retail business, but — no, this is what I do.”
And he’s been doing it — specifically, specializing in seafood — for the past 45 years, since learning the ropes as a 13-year-old in the pantry of the Pavilion Restaurant, his grandfather’s well-regarded French continental eatery in New Jersey. “Fortunately, they did everything in the classic French manner. I learned how to sauté, deglaze a pan, make a stock — it was a good benefit for me.”
Deciding food would be his career, Sands studied at the Culinary Institute of America, then headed to California in the mid-’70s, the dawn of the ‘California cuisine’ renaissance, which emphasizes locally grown, naturally raised, and sustainable seafoods, meats, and produce.
After a few years as chef de cuisine aboard the RMS Queen Mary in Long Beach, he partnered with two up-and-coming restaurateurs, Sam and Jeff King. As the University Restaurant Group, they opened six popular seafood restaurants throughout Greater Los Angeles. “The Water Grill in downtown LA is considered the finest seafood restaurant in California,” Sands said.
But he was not fated to remain on the left coast, and the call of the east is where the Zoë’s story begins.

Different World

The restaurants Sands helped incorporate in Greater Los Angeles “were very large and very successful,” he said. “But after we had our second child, my wife and I, who were both from the East Coast, decided we really didn’t want to raise our kids out there.”
Tragedy played a role. He lost two cooks to two separate drive-by shootings; one was a very good friend, and suddenly returning east seemed a solid decision.
First, the family moved to Washington, D.C., where Sands took a job as corporate executive chef at Sutton Place Gourmet, a specialty retailer, “like Whole Foods, but more upscale.” Eventually, he made his way to New England after striking up a business partnership with Timothy John, founder of Vermont Country Deli in Brattleboro. But that didn’t pan out.
“We were living in Greenfield, and we said, ‘we can either move back to California, or we can try to open up a restaurant here.’”
That was 1995, and the Gold Mine restaurant in Easthampton had been closed for about a year. “I met George Page, and we negotiated a deal and opened up Zoë’s in 1996.” He leased the property at first, but eventually bought it, and began to build a name as a go-to spot for seafood, evidenced by 13 nods for best seafood restaurant in the Valley Advocate’s annual Best of the Valley poll.
“Not many people can do seafood well,” he said. “It’s risky — it’s not like meats that get better with age. You have to accept the fact that you’ll throw stuff out if it’s past a certain date. Freshness is very important to me. Our success is based on quality. If we don’t deliver a quality product, we’ll be out of business.”
By 2008, however, he was out of business — at least in Easthampton. The property had become too expensive to maintain, and Sands craved a smaller location where he could put even more focus on delivering a quality product. So he sold the site to Valley Medical Group and began a search for a new location — which ended up being a prime spot on Russell Road in Hadley.
The new location opened in January 2010, and “so far it’s been great,” he said. “We really get the exposure because of Route 9; 30,000 cars drive by every day. And there’s plenty of parking.”
Meanwhile, “the town has been very receptive and good to work with. We’re so happy being here. It’s a smaller place than in Easthampton — down from 240 seats plus two banquet rooms to 100 seats — which is where I want to be. I can’t do the same volume, but the quality is better.”
He touts Zoë’s ability to get fresh seafood delivered seven days a week. “It’s not California, where so many different things are available at all times, but New England has a fair amount of seafood available to us; we always have fresh lobsters, claims, oysters — I have three or four varieties of oyster on the menu every day — cod and haddock from Georges Bank, tuna, swordfish.”
He believes in buying fish caught on day boats, not trawlers. “I pay more for that, but the quality is better, and there’s a better shelf life. Customers appreciate that. If someone gets a bad piece of fish, that’s going to reflect poorly on what I’m trying to accomplish as a restaurant owner.”
Sands is reluctant to name any one signature dish, but “probably our best seller is our cod and lobster pan roast — a thick loin cut of Georges Bank cod, which we pan-sear with fresh lobster meat and some shallots, sherry, and heavy cream. We reduce it and serve it on a bed of garlic mashed potatoes topped with crispy fried onion strings.
“It’s not light,” he laughed, “but people don’t come out to eat light.”
Sands and his son, Jesse — who is following the family tradition as chef at Zoë’s — prepare a sheet of daily specials, with five or six different fresh fish.
“Right now we’re featuring a corvina — it’s like a white grouper; they call it white sea bass in California. It’s very, very mild, flaky … it’s a beauty of a fish, and I can pretty much guarantee that no one else has it around here. My son, who worked in my old Zoë’s since he was 13 years old, is doing some very creative stuff with fish.”

Fresh Ideas
Sands admits it’s tough to run an independent restaurant in the wake of a recession. Although his prices are reasonable — most entrées cost between $19.95 and $29.95 — he knows that’s still a commitment for many locals. But the bottom line is that seafood carries a significant cost.
“People don’t like to cook seafood at home,” Sands said. “so they don’t realize scallops went up $5 a pound in the last year and a half. It costs more for cod than filet mignon.”
Even so, Sands tries to attract a more budget-conscious crowd with weeknight specials (Sunday through Thursday) featuring complete dinners for $12.95.
“I try to keep my prices moderate, and hopefully more people can afford to come out and eat. It’s still great-quality food, just smaller portions,” he said. “And if they get an appetizer or dessert, even better. I’d rather see the dining room full, whether they spend $13 or $30. And the waitstaff love it, because people are sitting down and tipping them. It’s a win-win situation.
“I’m not a fan of discount coupons by any means, but I want people to enjoy my product,” he continued. “The economy is such that it costs more than $60 to fill a gas tank. That used to be $60 people would use to come out and eat. We used to get some people once a week, and now if you see them once a month, you’re lucky. So you have to draw a new crowd; you can’t just rely on your regulars, because they can’t dine out as often as they used to.”
Still, Zoë’s has the support of plenty of regulars continually drawn back by the Sands family’s fresh ingredients and innovative recipes, as evidenced by all those Best of the Valley nods.
“It’s always an honor, and after 15 years we’ve been open, I think we’ve developed some great relationships, and people trust us,” he said. “That’s something we’re proud of. When people walk in and ask the server what they recommend tonight, maybe they wind up with an Alaskan halibut that they’ve never had before, and 99 times out of 100, they’re going to love it.”
Now that Jesse is fully engaged in the Zoë’s tradition, Sands is hopeful that his enterprise will continue well into the future. Not that he’s planning on stepping aside anytime soon.
“I’m 58 years old, and I’ve been in this business since I was 13, and I don’t think I’ll ever retire,” he told BusinessWest. “Hopefully I’ll slow down, knowing it’s in good hands with my son, but I’ll probably die here. Maybe not here, but in a restaurant somewhere.”

Joseph Bednar can be reached at businesswest.com

A chart of restaurants in Western Massachusetts

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Restaurant Owners Hope to Emerge from Recession Stronger

Area restaurants report increased numbers of people dining out. But is this a sign that the industry is out of the weeds? Numerous restaurant closures have been on the front pages for the past year, but most owners and managers say that, if a business has come this far, the year ahead promises to put a little more on their plates.

Reflecting on the three high-profile restaurants that have closed within a scone’s throw of her restaurant in the last year — Sitar, Onyx, and Pazzo — Gina Campiti said, “it was scary. It is scary.”
Campiti is the general manager of Samuel’s Sports Bar at the Basketball Hall of Fame, and for her, such closures aren’t good for her business and the spirit of healthy competition — but, most importantly, they’re not good for the city of Springfield.
“I feel terrible for those people that went out of business,” she said. “That’s an incredible loss of money for the owners, a loss for the staff, and a loss for those people who enjoyed the restaurants. It’s depressing in such high-profile parts of the city.”
But the space formerly housing Onyx isn’t dark anymore. The Spoleto Group, owner of seven area restaurants, including their namesake Italian dining room in Northampton, unveiled their latest “concept,” as Bill Collins calls them, this past summer. And with three bars and 450 seats, this second Mama Iguana’s location is anything but quiet.
Collins is the chief operating officer of the Spoleto Group, and he and owner Claudio Guerra both say this location has been one of the most exciting for the pair. “It’s our busiest location out of all our restaurants,” Collins said.
“The reason why is that, if you take a look at what has closed there,” he said, “places were selling food at $25 to $28 a plate, with $12, $15 martinis. And here we are, selling a quality house margarita for $7.50. We’re selling entrees for $9 to $12. Our focus is keep it cheap, keep it fun, and they will come. We’ve had great success with people reacting to our prices in this downturn.”

Springfield isn’t alone in high-profile closures along all price points in the restaurant industry. As it navigates Chapter 11 bankruptcy, Friendly’s closed four regional branch locations in January, with another 37 shutting their doors across the country — all this in addition to 63 locations that closed nationwide in October. And Northampton has one fewer fine-dining choice, as the longtime haunt Green Street Café is set to close at the end of January.
At the same time, the nation’s restaurateurs are claiming a rebound in 2011 after two lean years. The National Restaurant Assoc. reports that restaurants added a net 230,000 jobs during 2011, their strongest performance since 2006. In addition, the restaurant industry finished the year only 20,000 jobs shy of fully adding back the 366,000 jobs lost during the recession. Complete recovery is expected in early 2012.
In talking to area restaurateurs, their news was more like fine wine than sour grapes, and in addition to some strong sales numbers, most offered that the gradual crawl out of the economic downturn has given them hope for the year ahead. If they made it this far, they said, 2012 holds the promise of a rebounding marketplace along with the business acumen honed from staying afloat through the Great Recession.
So, what’s on the menu for 2012? BusinessWest sat down with chefs and operators of area restaurants and gathered some food for thought.

Dish Network
Campiti unfolded the leatherbound menu on the table in front of her, which now offers 51 tapas dishes to choose from.
“This menu is a big change for us,” she explained, “and I think it’s headed in the right direction. We were successful with half the number of tapas that we had on there before. I’m hoping for even half of the excitement that we had after we changed our menu the last time.”
She explained that the little dishes are a different concept in dining, and the past year’s successful operations at Samuel’s are a direct result of that.
“Some would say, if you give people too much choice, they’ll never make up their mind,” she explained. “But you don’t need to make up your mind! A tapa is a small plate. Instead of concentrating on one entrée in front of you, you’ve got a bunch of different plates on your table that you pick from. You talk, you share. You put a big entrée in front of someone, and that’s the center of their attention. Put a variety of plates around the table, and it promotes conversation.”
Her restaurant’s location in the Hall of Fame building is a slam dunk, she said, even with the number of other eateries in close proximity.
“People go where people are,” she continued. “If it’s a busy area, people will come out. It’s an attraction. It’s not competitive to us. It can actually complement the businesses around it. Everyone has their own brand, and customers want variety.”
Ralph Santaniello, co-owner of the Federal in Agawam, agreed with that sentiment. “I’m of the belief that there aren’t just a set number of restaurants that can survive. If you do a good job, there’s room for everyone.
“At the end of the day,” he went on, “the more diners that we can keep in the Springfield area, that’s a good thing for all of the restaurants around us — not to lose them to Northampton or West Hartford.”
He and Mike Presnal, his business partner and head chef, said that 2011 was a strong year. “Not only were we up around 20% over the year before, saleswise,” Santaniello said, “but our gift-certificate sales were up even higher. In December, that was around 35%.”
Asked for the secret ingredient to their success, Santaniello said it was simple: consistency and quality.
“Number one, we have never had a different chef,” he said. “And the fact is, we’re a chef-owned restaurant, a chef-driven restaurant. It’s hard to make it when you’re an owner but not an operator. We know what goes in and out of the kitchen and bar and dining room every night of operation.”

Antonio DiBenedetto said that consistency is not only a key aspect of success in running a restaurant, but one of the main reasons for a house’s success. He’s been the owner of Amedeo’s Restaurant in Holyoke for 11 years, but the business has been in the family for almost 30 years.
“It can be tough out there,” he noted, “but I think that places are closing down because there’s a lack of complete attention. You have to keep an eye on everything going on around you, every aspect of the business, not just food. It’s not one thing, it’s a million things, and consistency is a big one. The same person has made the sauces here for years. There’s no book for recipes; our food has been the same for decades.”
He joked that no one makes meatballs like his mother — “but every Italian cook will tell you that!” — and that his restaurant has weekly specials to offer some variety beyond what people might find locally. “Whatever looks good, or whatever’s in season,” he said — “osso buco, veal chops. One of my favorites is chicken carbonara, since I was a kid and my mom would make it. I try to duplicate it, but of course it’s not as good as hers.”

New World Order
The Farm Table restaurant is the newest business venture from the Kittredge family, owners of Kringle Candle. It’s housed in one of the oldest structures in Bernardston, across from the candle company’s retail flagship, and after a meticulous renovation both historic and green, it opened for lunch and dinner this past October.
Rubén Eduardo is the general manager of the restaurant, and he said that opening a restaurant in what many acknowledge to be a still-sluggish economy offered nothing but uncertainty. “We all know that the national economy was in a pretty low gear,” he added, “so we had no clear idea what would be the response when we opened.”
But what followed exceeded even their highest expectations. “I thought that we would hit about 30 reservations during the nighttime and about the same at lunch, and to my surprise, especially in this economy, it has been quite the opposite direction. Day one, for example, when we were open for lunch, we were expecting 30 or 40 people to join us. We had more than 200. So then we said, ‘OK, maybe that’s more like friends and family.’ But that trend didn’t go down.”
Early on, he realized that his reservation operation needed to be re-evaluated. With one person acting as host and fielding calls for reservations, it wasn’t enough for peak performance, especially for a day with reservations into the triple digits: one Tuesday alone fielded 400 calls for dinner.
Currently more than 60% of his clientele are repeat diners, and some of them are traveling from as far as Connecticut. He said people respond to the restaurant’s mission. “Western Mass. is blessed with amazing products and craftsmanship. In terms of our philosophy, the idea is that the food is, whenever possible, organic and sustainable. And priority is given to local farms. That is reflected in the building as well.”
The ceilings and floors are made from salvaged barn boards, all the stone work comes from within a 50-mile radius, and most of the furniture is made in Vermont. “Even our napkins are made in Hadley,” Eduardo added.
These are the details that make a difference, he said, for the customers and the staff — whom he credits for contributing to a memorable experience. “When our team is serving, they’re proud that these foods are local,” he continued. “These are the things that make a difference in the culture of a restaurant. I think that the enthusiasm from the public comes from the enthusiasm of a restaurant’s team.”
At the new Mama Iguana’s, Collins said a similar level of attention to each restaurant’s physical space has always been a key ingredient to the Spoleto Group’s success. “But the tough part about the economy now is that Claudio and I have had to change how we run the businesses,” he said. “It used to be easy to put up a great atmosphere with great food and service, and you’ve got yourself a busy restaurant that’s making money. It’s now more of a scientific business for us.”
The seven restaurants they oversee are Spoleto’s in Northampton and East Longmeadow; Spoleto Express, Pizzeria Paradiso, Paradise City Tavern, and Mama Iguana’s, all in Northampton; and the newest Mama Iguana’s in Springfield. Collins said this new economy has turned the pair into better businesspeople than they were before.
“We’ve been forced by the times and the economy to do that, and what Claudio and I are finding is that it’s the most exciting thing we’ve ever done,” he said. “We have taken an approach during this downturn to make all our concepts as affordable as possible. We’d rather set a stage where guests could come out two, three times a week and have an affordable, great meal, rather than having them come in once for $150 and not see them again for a couple weeks. Because what do people need at this time more than ever? A release — a place to come for a cocktail and some good food.”
After an entire life spent in the restaurant industry, Guerro agreed, adding that “this is a new world we’re living in. A couple years ago, we were asking, ‘how do we survive this storm?’ Now, it’s more like this is the new reality, and how do we make money in that reality?”
“We’ve been working a tremendous amount on the nuts and bolts of our operation, and streamlining the systems,” Collins said. “With these transitions, when the economy comes back, we’re ready for takeoff.”

Your Serve
Over at Samuel’s, Campiti agreed that the industry she has worked in all her life has been altered. “To me, I don’t look at this as a recession any longer,” she explained. “Now, it’s a change in the way of life.”
But, there’s one thing that doesn’t change, she said — a focus on customers, an idea which everyone who spoke with BusinessWest agreed.
“A customer walks through your door prepared to have a good experience, and they are pleasantly surprised to have a great experience,” Campiti said. “That’s what keeps us all here.”