Fazoli’s is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year. In that time, the Lexington-based brand’s focus has evolved from serving primarily pizza, pasta and breadsticks to include baked pasta dishes, sandwiches, entree salads, snacks and desserts—all of which are developed and tested in a kitchen at the company’s headquarters on Palumbo Drive.
Rick Petralia
Corporate Chef Rick Petralia heads up Fazoli’s test kitchen. He and his small team are responsible for imagining, creating and assessing every item on the restaurant’s menu across all of its locations. The testing area comprises a commercial kitchen equipped with five ovens and an attractive dining area, where the group hosts test panels and photo shoots.
When Petralia and his team are developing a promising new menu item, Fazoli’s will often reach out to its most loyal fans, either on social media or via the company’s app, and invite them to come in for a tasting. “There is always a lot of cooking and tasting going on here,” said Fazoli’s marketing manager Erin Stevens. “[Recipe development] is a long process, but it’s a lot of fun.”
Cinnamon swirl breadsticks, for example, are made from bite-sized pieces of Fazoli’s breadstick dough baked in a brown sugar, cinnamon and butter sauce and drizzled with cream cheese icing. “I made and tasted them at least 20 times, tweaking the amount of sugar, cinnamon, butter and salt,” Petralia said. And that was before the test panel came in. What did the panel say? “The general consensus was ‘Put these on the menu now,’” said Stevens. Guests can expect to find the item on Fazoli’s menu beginning spring 2019.
For Petralia, creating recipes often involves looking at industry trends and identifying which ones Fazoli’s wants to respond to, or seeing if they can improve upon what their competitors are doing. He estimates that 10 out of every 100 or so ideas he comes up will be selected for the screening process. “Seldom do we want to be the first to do something, but we don’t want to be the last either,” he said.
Fazoli’s also works with an outside consumer research firm to conduct surveys, in which participants rate how likely they are to purchase an item based on its name and description. If an item scores high on purchase intent and uniqueness, it’s moved on to the development stage.
“Uniqueness is important, because everyone loves fettuccini Alfredo and spaghetti with meatballs, and we sell a lot of those items, but they’re easy to replicate at home,” Petralia said. “For limited time offers, we want something that the average person will not be likely to whip up on a Tuesday night.”
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New menu items such as Parmesan-crusted Shrimp Bake, Chicken Parm-sagna and Pepperoni Pizza Breadsticks are developed at Fazoli’s corporate headquarters on Palumbo Drive.
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New menu items such as Parmesan-crusted Shrimp Bake, Chicken Parm-sagna and Pepperoni Pizza Breadsticks are developed at Fazoli’s corporate headquarters on Palumbo Drive.
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New menu items such as Parmesan-crusted Shrimp Bake, Chicken Parm-sagna and Pepperoni Pizza Breadsticks are developed at Fazoli’s corporate headquarters on Palumbo Drive.
A good example of this is what he calls “mash-ups”—taking two familiar menu items and combining them to make one entree, such as Buffalo chicken mac and cheese or Chicken Parm-sagna, a mash-up of baked chicken parmigiano and lasagna.
Deciding what foods should hit the market is a balancing act. “If an item is too unique or too niche, then its purchase intent will go down,” Petralia said. “That might work for fine dining menus, but it typically won’t work for a [quick-service restaurant] or fast-casual model.”
Once a dish scores well in consumer studies, it’s time to formulate it. Part of Petralia’s job is to make sure the item can be cooked successfully with existing equipment and remains within cost parameters. “A restaurant is a different environment than a test kitchen. It has to be profitable, and it has to be something our team can execute day to day.”
After a menu item makes it through the screening process, the purchasing team will negotiate with suppliers to source its ingredients at a reasonable cost. A typical baked pasta entrée like the Parmesan-crusted Shrimp Bake is priced around $7.99 — “A dish like that would easily sell for $15 plus tip at one of our competitors,” Petralia added.
While Fazoli’s menu is constantly evolving, the company is also in the midst of an extensive brand refresh, including a mobile app with a rewards program in which guests can accrue points and redeem them for freebies. The rebranding also includes updates for all of its restaurants. Last year, the company remodeled nine locations, and in the coming months, several more franchisees will be starting their remodels as well. The Palomar location, for example, is now equipped with a Wi-Fi bar, communal tables and a tomato-themed exterior mural. A new menu was launched in June of 2017 in company locations. Menu items were developed in the test kitchen and tested in Fazoli’s company restaurants for more than a year before the menu was rolled out this summer to franchise locations.
"For a brand our size, we have a pretty sophisticated research and development process."
“For a brand our size, we have a pretty sophisticated research and development process,” Stevens said. When asked to reflect on Fazoli’s past 30 years and goals for the future, she expressed her fondness for the local brand that she, as a Lexington native, grew up with.
“We have grown so much, and we’ve celebrated that this year. It’s great to be able to say, ‘We’re still here—we’re still that brand that you love, but we are always innovating, we are always enhancing the menu, and we are always listening to our guests.’”