January 26, 2015
Ax rollMikhail Tevelev and Yevgeny Kadomsky opened the first Japanese restaurant "Two Sticks" in 2003. Today the chain has 40 restaurants in St. Petersburg and Moscow. In addition to it, the Food Retail Group holding includes the Marchelli's Italian restaurant chain, as well as the single restaurants Library, Long Tail, Bakhchai, Big Kitchen and others. This summer, a restaurant was opened in New York Urbo project Mikhail Tevelev, co-owner of Food Retail Group, spoke about the various activities and plans of the FoodService holding.
Holding Food Retail Group Founded in 2003 in St. Petersburg by Mikhail Tevelev and Evgeny Kadomsky, until 2010 it was called PSK-Holding. Today, the holding owns and manages the Two Sticks chain (26 restaurants in St. Petersburg, 14 in Moscow), the Marchelli "e" chain (eight outlets in St. Petersburg and one in Moscow), single restaurants "Biblioteka", "Shater", Cafe Berlin, Long Tail, Bakhchai, Big Kitchen, and the Urbo restaurant project in New York.
Michael, let's start over. Did you and Yevgeny Kadomsky open the first Dve Palochki restaurant in 2003 under the auspices of PSK-Holding?
Yes. In 2003, I was 23 years old, Evgeny - 27, before that I worked as a client manager in a Moscow bank. At that time, Evgeny had already opened the fashionable St. Petersburg club Absent together with the Ost-West company. In the capital, the Japanese restaurant "Gin no Taki" was then popular - the first motivator that moved us to Japanese cuisine. In St. Petersburg, we opened the first restaurant "Two sticks" on Italianskaya in parallel with the opening of "Vasabi" and "Yakitoria", around the same time the future company Ginza Project launched its first sushi restaurant. Our "Two Sticks" was immediately chosen by the fashionable public: for that time it was a restaurant-restaurant, the project was successful.
in 2001 Graduated from the Faculty of Economics of St. Petersburg State University. From 2001 to 2002 worked as a client-manager in "Promstroybank". Since 2003 - co-owner of PSK-Holding (since 2010 - Foot Retail Group).
Then came the search period. Even then, we were striving for diversification - we wanted to open concepts in different market segments. In 2004, we opened a democratic restaurant "Meatballs" in Stachek Avenue in St. Petersburg, which later became a chain, which we sold to the company "Chaynaya Lozhka" in 2011. They built the Italian restaurant "Solntse", the restaurant "Opera", instead of which the restaurant "Shater" on Italianskaya, the club "Ice-Lemon" was opened. And only then did we begin to open "Two sticks" again - the second point on Vasilyevsky Island, the third -on the street Uprising. And by 2005 we clearly formulated: we will build a network of Japanese restaurants, seeing a great prospect in Two Sticks. Gathered a strong team and began to replicate. Today, 40 restaurants "Two Sticks" provide 70% of the income of the entire holding.
- The first persons of the holding are you and Yevgeny Kadomsky. Who is responsible for what?
Eugene is more responsible for concepts, marketing, branding. I'm in charge of finance, GR, development.
- A year ago, you expanded the Two Sticks menu: you introduced a section of burgers, Pan-Asian, Italian. Do you need a cosmopolitan menu to survive a decline in interest in traditional sushi bars?
Yes. You can keep a clean format in a small project, such as, for example, our Indian restaurant Apteka. If you have a network, you are forced to follow the guest. Cosmopolitanism is a market demand, despite the fact that the Japanese direction in "Two sticks" still accounts for more than half of all sales.
- How much does the construction of one point cost you?
Depends on where to build, in street retail or shopping mall. If we are talking about street retail in St. Petersburg - 80 thousand rubles. for 1 sq. m, in the capital the figures are comparable. St. Petersburg has very difficult premises.
No. "Two sticks" is a youth format, and we must be in trend all the time, consciously go along the edge. But our other network, Italian restaurants"Marcelli" s, we promote it as a family one, they bring their parents and even grandparents there. Now we are actively building it up, and in both capitals: in St. Petersburg we are opening at four locations, in Moscow we are considering several premises at once.
- How are you going to develop "Two sticks"?
In St. Petersburg, not a single point of Two Sticks has opened over the past year, and here we no longer want to develop the Japanese direction, all good passage places are occupied. Our plans are to actively go to Moscow, and to master the shopping mall. There is a trend in the capital now - the construction of hyper-complexes, plus the renovation of old ones that opened in the 2000s is underway.
In general, over the next three years, we would like to double the number of restaurants in our two main chains, that is, build another 50 outlets. At the same time, we are going to build more actively in sleeping bags.
Will agriculture revive?
Previously, could farms enter large retail chains with their products? Never! Entry bonuses were too high for the volumes offered by these farms. Now half of the shelves in retail are empty, retail asks: give me what you have! Rosselkhozbank is now starting to lend to farms to fill empty shelves. And who else will they lend to?
Moscow, 30.10.2013
Having opened over 50 restaurants in St. Petersburg and Moscow, the ideologists of the Two Sticks chain and a number of other successful Russian projects decided to move to the West.
About how the idea of opening "Two sticks" in conservative Stockholm unexpectedly transformed into the largest in the history of the domestic restaurant business a startup in the heart of New York, said Mikhail Tevelev, co-owner of the Food Retail Group holding.
Expert North-West: Mikhail, your business card says Makers lab instead of the usual FOOD Retail Group. What are the changes?
Mikhail Tevelev: Everything is quite natural: FOOD Retail Group was the name for b2b partners - banks, suppliers, government agencies - in a word, for everyone except our guests. But since now there are more brands of projects, a certain semantic filling of our association has appeared, its ideology has been formed, we decided to make a brand for b2c, that is, for visitors, so that when they come to the restaurant, they understand: all this is Makers lab. It seemed to us that this name has more creativity and creativity.
"Expert North-West": Why did you immediately go abroad, and not to the regions?
Mikhail Tevelev: We covered only St. Petersburg and Moscow not by chance. I traveled a lot in Russia: Novgorod, Yekaterinburg, Krasnodar - of course, we all speak the same language, but our mentality is completely different ... We are very different, and when choosing where to do business - in Khanty-Mansiysk or New York, you need visit New York once so that the answer becomes obvious.
This is an entrepreneurial approach - the desire to discover a new horizon. It is not directly related to the question of the image of the company, with the fact that it must certainly be, as they say, "international".
This story is no longer exciting. But other things are exciting: the crazy capacity of the New York market and access to its colossal opportunities if successful. For understanding, I can give you some figures: according to expert estimates, in 2010 in Russia the size of the restaurant market was, according to official data, 20 billion euros, in America - 520 billion dollars. The New Yorker mentality is to eat three meals a day—breakfast, lunch, and dinner—out of the house. In Moscow, so far people go to restaurants at best for business meetings.
"Expert Northwest": In a city like New York, it's hard without support. Did someone from the American side advise you, help you?
Mikhail Tevelev: In general, in the States, as here, we do business on our own, but in legal matters and in the search for resources that could be attracted to create a business, we were helped by Russian-speaking colleagues. By the way, for a long time we could not find partners who could show suitable premises. At first, even the New York branch of the largest international consulting company in the field of commercial real estate Colliers International did not help us, but when a Russian guy Dmitry Levkov came there, with whom we were introduced by a well-known real estate expert Nikolai Kazansky, we received all the necessary advice and assistance in finding . As a result, they decided to go not to Manhattan, but to Times Square.
"Expert North-West": Why?
Mikhail Tevelev: These are two different halos… Times Square for New York is like Nevsky Prospekt for St. Petersburg. You have to understand that it’s harder to make a mistake on Nevsky: here the guest always forgives, especially since 80% of visitors are new every time. But the mistake in Manhattan, somewhere on Bowery Street, is much more significant, because there are many more regular guests who will remember that you made a mistake. Although it is clear that the cost of building a restaurant on the same Bowery is disproportionately lower - 3-5 million dollars, while our budget for construction alone, even without approvals, amounted to 22 million. When we entered this market, we sincerely believed that it was more expensive than in Russia, there can be nothing anywhere - no matter how it is!
"Expert North-West": Only for the construction - 22 million dollars, for the entire implementation of the idea - 46 million ... Is this a lot for such a project in the heart of New York?
Mikhail Tevelev: For a restaurant with an area of 2.5 thousand square meters. m in a similar place is adequate. For Russia, of course, this is a very large amount. We recently opened a restaurant on 1.5 thousand square meters. m, additionally launching the elevator, changing all the engineering, supplying gas, electricity, redoing the floors, and spent about $ 5 million on all this ...
But keep in mind that Times Square is also a trade union zone, and in the States it is a specific mafia, albeit legalized, with which God save you from quarreling. So it was not possible to invite low-skilled workers to work in a new skyscraper, built immediately after the 2008 crisis, who would reduce the cost of our costs by one and a half times. It is clear, of course, that you are not obliged to enter into an agreement with the union companies, however, if this is not done, they may declare war on you. Thus, according to the views of the unions, the cost of one worker - an ordinary carpenter who, relatively speaking, just nailing - is $ 300 per hour. This is with a mandatory lunch, mobile communications, an eight-hour working day and a solid increase in the tariff for each hour of processing. Refusal to work with trade unions is fraught with information confrontation. So, those who have already encountered this, for example, tell how representatives of trade union companies inflated a huge rat near their objects as a sign of disagreement ... True, as a response, entrepreneurs hired passers-by who pierced this rat. The fight can go as far as writing on the walls of your house or setting cars on fire. It's real. So it is better not to save on construction.
By the way, in this project I first encountered the American approach to construction. This is a colossal amount of documentation with countless sheets for literally every screw! But they also build for centuries. This cannot but delight.
Returning to the question of the budget, I would also like to emphasize that in New York we are not building a restaurant, but a restaurant complex, although I do not like this word. Let's call it experience. The project includes a separate Blue Bottle coffee shop (a very trendy story for the USA), a bar on the second floor with a separate entrance for a huge number of visitors who wished to spend time somewhere after the same Broadway show, a secret restaurant, the entrance to which will be strictly by records. We are also making a zone for banquets: in America, a kind of “team building” has become popular, when employees gather after work small company in a restaurant closed to them and cook something themselves.
"Expert North-West": Apparently, there will be no cabbage soup, borscht and a bear at the entrance?
Mikhail Tevelev: There is Mari Vanna in New York, and Russian authenticity is enough for him. We do not really advertise that this project is being done by the Russians. The concept of the restaurant was born from a clear analysis of what is happening in Times Square. Imagine: you come to Italy, to the States, to any other country. It is clear that you are more interested in seeing what is really there. Tourists are mostly programmed by guidebooks: the Statue of Liberty, the Empire State Building, Fifth Avenue, at worst - the Apple Store. Restaurants are about the same. We would like to be featured in the top guides to the best New York restaurants, and at the same time really show guests what the real, not pop New York is like. According to our concept, we create an authentic space using only local materials, without bringing Italian marble or Russian gold. A strict selection of brands is designed to reflect the identity of New York, to create a real atmosphere of this city, to reflect its spirit ...
Expert North-West: Is the restaurant team Russian?
Mikhail Tevelev: We bring nothing Russian to the American market, and the team is no exception (except for the financier and our creative director). General manager - a person who was involved in the start-up project Eataly, which today generates 45 million annual turnover for 600 seats. We also have two very strong chefs who are also foreigners.
"Expert North-West": How soon and how do you plan to pay off?
Mikhail Tevelev: Our financial model was based on the expertise of top managers from the New York industry. The payback period is 4.7 years. One of our key advantages is location. Due to the fact that we are at the epicenter of the flow of people (1 million people a day), we are able to confidently predict the launch of the restaurant in the spring of 2014. In addition, we have five different segments under one roof, and due to this, as well as regular monitoring and analysis of the results, our risks of not getting into the concept are well diversified.
"Expert North-West": And yet: if the new project is successful, will you return to the idea of "Two Sticks" in the USA?
Mikhail Tevelev: When American friends came to us, they unanimously repeated that the format of "Sticks" is what New York needs. In the US, there are a lot of small sushi restaurants with 50 seats, owned by people from Korea and Japan. On the other hand, there are very big restaurants high class. We can offer the market a democratic youth network, which in New York realities would be fresh and new. So let's experiment. We got a lot of bumps and understood what American business is and how to deal with it. In any case, New York is the most fertile ground for the development of correct concepts.
"Expert North-West": Well, what are the nearest plans of Makers lab in Russia?
Mikhail Tevelev: Russian business today is developing in three main directions. First of all, this restaurant group, which promotes chain concepts of restaurants of Japanese ("Two Sticks"), Italian ("Marcelli's") and Oriental cuisine, as well as several local restaurant projects ("Long Tail", Biblioteka, etc.) in St. Petersburg and Moscow.
The second direction is the sphere of entertainment. Not so long ago, we launched the largest indoor entertainment complex in Europe - Maza park with an area of 15 thousand square meters. m at the Bukharestskaya metro station. By paying 300-600 rubles, depending on the time of day, guests of the complex get free access to all entertainment. This is a bowling alley with 38 lanes, 100 billiard tables, 20 table tennis tables, an autodrome, discos, nightclubs, bars, fast food, etc. The complex shows very good performance, so now we are building another amusement park in the north of the city. The plans include the largest project at VDNKh: we intend to cover 20,000 sq. m. m of premises with a spacious adjacent territory.
The third vector of development is the Swissam business school in St. Petersburg. In fact, this is an infrastructure project, the purpose of which is to supply the hotel and restaurant industries with highly qualified personnel. It was launched in collaboration with the Institute of Hotel, Tourism and Event Management of Switzerland (International Management Institute) and the American Institute of Culinary Education (The Institute of Culinary Education). By combining two proven programs and without inventing anything, we only adapted them to domestic realities. The rector of Swissam is the Swiss Walter Shpaltenstein, who long time ran a successful business school in Lucerne, a very well-known personality in the field of education.
In general, we have enough plans for both the Russian and global markets...
reference
The Times Square 11 restaurant is located in the center of New York, next to Broadway and the theater district, in a new office center. The total foot traffic in the restaurant area is over 1 million people a day. The restaurant is open around the clock. Its concept is "Bring food back to Times Square".
The total project budget is $46 million (IRR: 23.7%). Partners project : Isometrix, Gardiner & Theobald, HLV, Thornton Tomasetti, VDA, N CAPITAL.Start of the project in autumn 2011, the opening of the restaurant is scheduled for spring 2014.
