Page 82 - BusinessWest May 12, 2021

Hot Table
Continued from page 80
benefited from the takeout nature of most business and also from an added delivery component.
Hot Table invested in an app that enables consumers to order from the menu and arrange delivery through Grubhub or another provider, said John, adding that the technology served to introduce the brand to new audiences.
“That was a silver lining for us,” he explained. “We had a lot of folks dis- cover us who might have just been at home ordering from a third-party plat- form, who had never been in one of
our stores.”
And this is just one of the ways the
pandemic has actually benefited Hot Table, he went on, adding that it has made real estate both more available and more affordable.
So much so that the company, which has long considered Boston far out of its reach when it comes to real- estate prices, is being encouraged to take a good look at the Hub.
Whether this chain can actually attain a Boston address for one its loca- tions is one of the many questions that will be answered over the next several years. For now, the company is focused on 2021, and all that it has on its plate
— literally as well as figuratively.
For this issue and its focus on res-
taurants, BusinessWest talked with the brothers DeVoie and third partner Rich Calcasola, based in Charlotte, N.C., to get a sense for where this brand can
go next and how big the portfolio can become.
Ingredients for Success
As he referenced those architectural renderings of the Chicopee site, John DeVoie pointed to what could become the ‘golden arches’ for this chain.
That would be the tall red signage, or marquee, with what has become the company’s brand — a stylized slice of
panini bread with grill marks running across it, with the words ‘Hot Table’ over it.
It’s not really possible to put such large, pronounced signage on the exist- ing locations within shopping plazas, he said, adding that the new look rep- resents another breakthrough for the company and an opportunity to not only sell more paninis, but grow its brand.
“When you build your own build- ing, you have the opportunity to think about what your brand says on the out- side — what is the golden arch for us?” he noted. “And it’s a long way from our origins at the Breckwood Shoppes.”
By that, he meant not just the marquee, but the free-standing store concept, locations on both ends of the state, aggressive plans to add four stores in just over a year, and ongoing talk about where to go next.
But before talking more about the present and future, let’s recap how we got here.
Our story begins in 2006, when John and Chris, both successful in cor- porate sales, decided they wanted to make money for themselves, instead of someone else, and started to focus on the restaurant industry.
Blending vast amounts of experi-
“In March and April, when the pandemic hit,
we weren’t sure we had a company — we had an 80% plunge in revenue. We had the same ‘what the heck just hit us?’ experience that just about everyone in the restaurant business did.”
ence with taking corporate clients with a healthy appetite for entrepreneurship out to eat, they started shaping a con- cept for the growing fast-casual catego- ry of eatery, and followed the advice of their sister, who told them about a din- ing model she encountered on a trip
to Italy — cafés of sorts called tavola calda, which translates, literally, to ‘hot table,’ and their parents, who suggest- ed a made-to-order panini concept.
For their first location, the two chose the Breckwood Shoppes, which they knew well because they both graduated from Western New England. The site wouldn’t attract any of the huge players in the fast-casual arena — Chipotle, Chick-fil-A, Panera Bread, Shake Shack, and others — because of the demographics of the surrounding area, but for them, it worked.
It blended the college crowd — stu- dents, professors, staff, and adminis- tration alike — with a thickly settled
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