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The AAA Four-Diamond rated Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Hollywood, Fla., in late March unveiled its newest dining venue, Kuro Japanese Craft Kitchen. Designed by New York-based David Mexico Design Group, the 240-seat restaurant features an open-concept incorporating elements of land and sea throughout the space. Guests enter from the resort lobby, passing a feature wall comprised of 100,000 hand-placed sea shells.

Sandwich leader Subway recently hit a milestone in its nontraditional franchise development, opening its 5,000th c-store/truck stop location, in Lima, Peru. Subway now has 10,498 restaurants in nontraditional venues.

A well-designed and well-equipped outdoor patio can be a boon for restaurant guests and owners alike, offering a pleasant, al fresco dining experience and an opportunity to boost traffic and revenues. But designing these spaces requires careful planning: There’s much more to it than simply setting up a few tables and chairs outside.

Ancient architects laid the hearthstone first, then built the home or inn around the fireplace, the central nexus for heating and cooking. Today, the scent and savor of wood-grilled foods continue to exert a primeval appeal, and a growing number of restaurants now make live-fire hearths the heart of their concepts.

Often, restaurant owners put their trust in an architecture firm to manage most aspects of a construction project, including overseeing costs and budgets.

Giraffas

For the owners of Giraffas, Brazil's fourth-largest quick-service chain, the decision to expand internationally was an easy one. Anticipating changes to the company's rate of growth in Brazil, the executives set their sights on expanding into the United States. An easy jump, it would seem, from their South American headquarters.

“If you ate in one of our KFCs, you saw how much better it is than in the U.S.,” boasts Henry McGovern, chairman of AmRest Holdings, who sat down for an interview with rd+d in the company’s Wroclaw, Poland, headquarters in March.

To date, Which Wich CEO Jeff Sinelli has founded three franchised restaurant chains. At first, he strictly followed his lawyer’s advice for enforcing construction and design standards. Then, as he learned more about selling franchises, he began to customize compliance standards to better satisfy franchisee expectations.