Earls Kitchen + Bar has made renovations to its restaurant at the corner of Hornby and Smithe streets that hurt short term profits at that landmark location.
Not only did the 65-restaurant chain remove 17 of 20 seats in the upstairs of what is now a 244-seat bistro. It also spent $1.2 million to build a test kitchen in that space.
“That’s a number that should blow people away,” Earls president Mo Jessa told Business in Vancouver on June 24, before he officially unveiled the kitchen at a launch party. “That’s a big investment. Most people will build an entire restaurant for $1.2 million [to have] seats where there will be a customer who pays you. We’re just spending it on a test kitchen - something that is not revenue generating.”
When the chain’s owners, the Fuller family, asked Jessa to defend the cost, he said the kitchen had three purposes.
First, it would help the chain attract top chefs from around the world to work at Earls, brainstorm on recipe formulations and create top-notch offerings.
Second, state of the art audio-visual component and permanent cameras would enable webcast training sessions to chefs across the chain as well as providing other educational opportunities and perhaps even a reality show.
Finally, it would indelibly stamp the location at Hornby and Smithe streets as being the chain’s flagship store.
“We could have built this in a remote location where the cost would have been lower because there was existing heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC),” Jessa said. “We wanted to build something that was high profile. The reason that it was so expensive to create was that the site was not ideal to build it easily as the upstairs did not have HVAC.”
Simultaneous to the kitchen’s launch, Earls is changing its menus to include about 20% new items.
“In July, we will have a flagship menu, which will be at one store in each market – each province,” he said.
