PHOTO COURTESY OF ANGIE'S FOOD CONCEPTS
man. The company operates a 63,000-square-foot processing plant in Maine, where the lobster is flash-frozen and shipped to the cen- tral production facilities that serve Angie’s restaurants. “It was a huge investment for us, but the savings are astronomical,” he said. And though the food costs of a lobster roll are high at Angie’s Lob- ster, the company balances it out by cutting costs elsewhere. The restaurants, which range in size from about 950- to 3,000-square feet, need little in the way of labor. Guests pay digitally and pick up through the drive-thru. There’s no fancy, branded packag- ing. It’s served in a paper tray with no lid and one napkin, no straw, in a plain brown bag. Almost all other ingredients, from sauces to drinks, are made in the central kitchen facility—without preservatives, Christofellis notes, and from high-quality ingredients, like prime beef, organic lettuce and chicken raised without antibiotics.
In fact, the only things Angie’s doesn’t make in house are the fries and the buns (the latter are made by a gourmet baker), and the Diet Coke and Sprite. But here’s one thing he did dif- ferently. At Salad and Go, ingredi- ents were almost entirely prepped in the central kitchen and delivered to restaurants for salad assembly. At Angie’s, the main proteins are butchered and prepped in the cen- tral kitchen facility, but cooked in the restaurants. In addition, some ingredients that are just not as good when prepped ahead, like diced tomatoes and onions, are also pre- pared in restaurants. “Anything that affects quality is decentralized,” he said. “Those ar- en’t super labor-intensive things to do.” Yet, Angie’s still maintains speed through the drive-thru by cooking that meat using double-sided clam- shell grills, similar to a McDonald’s, Christofellis said. Using that equip- ment, steak and chicken can be grilled perfectly every time, with no
“Lobster is the ultimate luxu- ry food, so if you can make that as affordable as a chicken meal, con- sumers will accept your model,” he said. The first Angie’s brand to launch in 2021 was Angie’s Lobster, which now has eight units with several more coming this year. Angie’s Lobster specializes in wild-caught seafood, but the spe- cialty is the Maine lobster roll. A chilled lobster roll is priced at $9.99, which is a shockingly low price, giv- en many restaurants are paying up- wards of $34 per pound for frozen Maine lobster. Angie’s is able to get it for about $18 per pound because the compa- ny has pretty much cut out the mid- dleman. And that’s fundamentally Christofellis’ modus operandi: ver- tical integration. Rather than buying lobster the traditional way from a distribu- tor, who goes through a proces- sor that has sourced from a wharf that bought lobster off the boat, Angie’s buys direct from fisher-
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OCTOBER 2024 RESTAURANT BUSINESS
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