Development

Firebirds Wood Fired Grill

• HQ: Charlotte, N.C.
• Concept: Polished casual
• Technomic Fast 50 Rank: 32
• 2013 units/2013 growth rate: 29 (all company-owned)/30 percent
• 2014 units (projected): 8
• Project management software: Yes
• Average unit size: 6,800 square feet
• Average unit build-out: 135 days
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Like other restaurant CEOs, Firebirds' Mark Eason begins each new eatery by penciling the numbers. "Construction cost, building cost and all those factors that go into the ROI," he says. But unlike most operators of small chains, Eason has a site-analytics firm helping him hit that percentage (somewhere around 28 percent).

To be sure, having sophisticated site data is a lot better than guessing. Yet Eason and his team opened the first 17 Firebirds the old-fashioned way: driving markets and looking for movie theaters, malls, office buildings, interstates and the like. They also depended on research done by large upscale chains, figuring their sites must be decent.

"Angelo Gordon wanted us to get a little more detailed, so we hired a site-analytics firm to help pinpoint locations," Eason recalls, referencing the private equity firm that purchased the company three years ago. "But we still haven't nailed [sales projections] 100 percent."

Current data has either projected sales too high or too low for the 14 restaurants opened since the private equity firm bought the company. So seven months ago management decided to update the model by including guest survey data. Eason expected the new site model to be ready by late spring.

Meanwhile, management plans on opening eight new restaurants this year and nine in 2015. Most of the new builds will be outside of the company's mid-Atlantic home base. Ohio, for instance, is a new market for the chain.

Gerald Pulsinelli, vice president of development, says today it takes only 135 days from the start of construction to open a new 6,800-square-foot Firebirds — that's 15 days fewer than in the past. The reduced timeline is due largely, he adds, to a site investigation report (or SIR) done by one of two architectural firms the company hires. The report includes "parameters" that management requires for each new site.

These new-store parameters have been carefully documented since the first Firebirds opened 14 years ago. "We kept building on the parameters, and they just became a checklist you either add to or take away from. All the tools are there with the dates and everything," Eason explains. "We put the best practices together from our previous lives," adds Pulsinelli, who grew up in the restaurant business and has since worked for several chains, including Morton's.

Management, which uses two general contractors, divides the 135-day construction process into thirds. "First, you've got your first round of inspections, the walls are up with wiring and the ceilings are roughed in. In the second third, there are MEP inspections and the kitchen equipment is put in," Pulsinelli explains. "The final third is the finishing work."

Receiving the right materials from vendors, on time, is critical to maintaining schedules, and that's all about the submittals, Eason says. Vendors send images and samples to Firebirds' architects and its director of construction, who make sure the colors and finishes match the spec. And, despite its small size, the company attempts to buy directly from manufacturers to save both time and money. Eason recently discovered a chair maker in Ohio, for example, not far from where the company was opening a restaurant. "We bypass the vendor now," he says, "and buy our chairs directly from that manufacturer."