Forty years after first forming hard rock band Kiss, front men Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley are still jamming out for arena audiences, but now they’re also feeding fans.
The duo joined a group of local businessmen last year to develop Rock & Brews, a chain of classic rock-themed restaurants that serve pizza and burgers as well as more than 100 draft and bottled craft beers. The partners have opened restaurants in El Segundo and Los Cabos, Mexico, and are scheduled this week to open a third, on the Pacific Coast Highway in Torrance.
Simmons and Stanley both insisted they were more than figureheads in the business, but according to a spokeswoman neither has invested any cash in the venture.
The three Rock & Brews are the first in an ambitious plan to open as many as 100 restaurants in the next five years. Deals have already been struck to open restaurants in Agoura; Maui, Hawaii; and at Delta’s Terminal 5 at Los Angeles International Airport. A seventh is scheduled to open in Kansas City, Mo., early next year.
The aggressive expansion is one reason Stanley said he decided to join the venture, which includes Dell Furano, former chief executive of Live Nation Merchandise, a division of Live Nation Entertainment Inc. in Beverly Hills; his brother Dave Furano, former president of concert promoter Bill Graham Presents; and restaurateur and hotelier Michael Zislis, owner of the three local Rock’n Fish restaurants and four other eateries.
“Honestly, I’ve always steered away from opportunities to be involved in restaurants, but this is so much more,” Stanley said. “I wasn’t interested in being part of a restaurant. I’d rather be part of a movement.”
It is a movement the principals insist is not just another Hard Rock Café.
“We wanted to make sure this concept wasn’t executed like other rock ‘n’ roll concepts, where it’s more about the design than the food,” Zislis said. “Ours is based more on the food, and rock ‘n’ roll is the ancillary part of it.”
One point of departure from Hard Rock is the décor, which is designed to be bright and open, not dark and crammed with memorabilia.
“It’s open and it’s celebratory, as opposed to looking like a museum,” Stanley said. “Quite honestly, I don’t want to see anyone’s outfit in a shadow box hanging on the wall, where it looks cheap or small. This is about the present day, not living in the past.”
Rock & Brews restaurants are decorated with album art and televisions airing footage of classic rock concerts. The atmosphere is meant to be reminiscent of a backstage concert environment, where music is central, but not ear-crushingly loud, and beer flows freely.
‘Building a skyscraper’
The Rock & Brews scheduled to open this week is the team’s first franchised location, and owner Jon Mesko said the background and experience of the team behind the brand drew him into his first restaurant venture.
“I think doing a restaurant with Mike is like building a skyscraper with Donald Trump,” he said.
Mesko, owner of Manhattan Beach retailer Manhattan Denim, said the Torrance site is expected to cost a little more than $2 million to open.
The rapid expansion is to be fed through a mix of company-owned, franchised and, in a handful of international instances, licensed operations that involve branding deals but little direct oversight from the home office. The Mexican outpost was the chain’s first licensed location.
Jerry Prendergast, principal at Culver City restaurant consultancy Prendergast & Associates, said restaurant chains looking to expand as quickly as Rock & Brews might face challenges building management teams and an infrastructure that can keep up.
However, he said, Zislis’ extensive restaurant experience could mitigate that problem. The bigger challenge for the new concept is nailing down the necessary real estate so quickly.
“It’s not going to happen in five years, I can tell you that right now,” he said. “It comes down to real estate acquisition. You can’t negotiate that many leases.”
Dell Furano, who is handling business development, licensing and branding for the restaurant chain, said he’s confident Rock & Brews will meet its goal as long as the partners knuckle down and focus their efforts.
“We’re being inundated with requests for partnerships, franchises and licenses already, so I don’t think finding the locations will be the difficult part,” he said.
Once leases are signed, the group’s rock-and-roll background will come into play. Furano said the restaurants will come together quickly, much the way stadium and arenas are converted overnight into high-tech concert venues.
“In other words, we’re quick,” he said. “But we’re also very prudent businessmen.”
Part of that prudence can be seen in how the product is positioned.
Even as the concept aims to re-create a party environment, the chain is designed to appeal to a wide range of people, particularly families with young children. In addition to having a lounge area for those 21 and older, each restaurant includes a play area for kids. The Torrance location boasts a Beatles-inspired yellow submarine for kids to climb in and play.
Stanley, who has four children, three of whom are younger than 7, said it was important to all the partners that the restaurants be family friendly.
“At this point, we’re all family men. We want a place where we can be comfortable bringing our kids,” he said.
Simmons said he doesn’t think the restaurant, in trying to appeal to disparate customers, will fall into the trap of appealing to no one.
“It’s the same thing that happens with women,” he said. “During the daytime they look one way and at night they look different. But she’s still the same person.”
