Page 12 - BusinessWest January 20, 2025

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Pressing the Issue
John and Chris I
DeVoie Build a Brand — and a Following
BY GEORGE O’BRIEN
[email protected]
t has established residency in one corner of the conference room at the Hot Table offices on the 23rd floor at Tower Square in downtown Springfield.
And the plaster statue of the character Captain Jack Sparrow from the Pirates of the Caribbean movies — salvaged from a closed seafood restaurant in the Plaza at Buckland Hills in Manchester, Conn., where it greeted visitors at the front door — speaks volumes about the Hot Table chain of panini restau- rants and the entrepreneurs who have grown it to 13 locations. And counting.
It speaks to how far the chain, launched in the Breckwood Shoppes in Springfield in
2007, now reaches — south and east of Hart- ford — but also to how the chain has been able to capitalize on some real-estate opportunities, in this case that failed restaurant, to expand its reach. But mostly, it speaks to how found- ers and brothers John and Chris DeVoie like
to collect memorabilia and, well ... also have a good time.
“It was a seafood place with a kind of a pirate theme,” John explained. “The place was emptied out, we went in, demoed it, and that was left over, and we decided to take it and put it in our office. It makes a great conversation piece.
“It scared the cleaning people when we first brought it up here,” he went on, noting that the cigar-store-Indian-like artifact wears a nam- etag — Rich — for Rich Calcasola, a partner in
John (left) and Chris DeVoie
Photo by Bob Zemba, Simple Truth Imaging