uWink Bistro Blog

Everyone knows location is important when running a consumer based business, and a restaurant is no exception.

We chose the first uWink Bistro location at the Westfield Promenade in Woodland Hills for four reasons:

1. It’s a perfect fit for our target demographics
2. It’s the right size (5000 square feet and high ceilings)
3. The mall is managed by Westfield
4. More than two restaurants located at the Westfield Promenade each generate over $8 million in revenue a year

Our target demographic – women between the ages of 21 and 35 – like to shop!  That’s why we choose to put the first uWink Bistro in a shopping mall!  This particular mall has excellent stores that are attractive to our target demographic.  Here’s a few of my favorites:  Coach, Williams Sonoma, Macy’s, and Restoration Hardware.

Also nearby is a huge office complex called Warner Center.  There’s even a shuttle available between the hours of 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. for the Warner Center workforce to catch a quick bite or do some shopping during lunch.

And, Westfield Promenade is anchored by Macy’s and the Promenade AMC 16 movie theater.  What more could we ask for?

I know everyone knows that restaurants vary in size, from 1000 square feet on the small end to 16,000 square feet on the larger end.  uWink is 5400 square feet – just the right size for our first location, seating about 160 people.  That does not include standing room around the bar.

We also chose this location because it was important to our growth plans to have a relationship with Westfield.

Here’s a little bit about Westfield from their website that might explain why they are important:

http://westfield.com/corporate/about/profile.html 

The Westfield Group is the largest retail property group in the world by equity market capitalization and the sixth largest entity listed on the Australian Stock Exchange. Operating on a global platform, the Westfield Group is an internally managed, vertically integrated shopping centre group, undertaking ownership, development, design, construction, funds and asset management, property management, leasing and marketing employing in excess of 4,400 staff worldwide.
 The Westfield Group has interests in an investment portfolio of 120 shopping centres valued in excess of A$52.1 billion (US$38.2 billion) located in Australia, the United States, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. These shopping centre portfolios have strong positions in their local markets with geographic, retail and economic diversity providing a strong and consistent income stream. The centres are located in prime trade areas, anchored by long term tenancies with major retailers and incorporate a wide cross section of high quality specialty retailers and national chain store operators.

Finally, as I mentioned above, we chose the Westfield Promenade location because multiple other restaurants in the mall are doing over $8 million per year in revenue.  Here’s a list of restaurants:  Maggiano’s Little Italy, Ruby’s Diner, P.F. Chang’s China Bistro, and Ruth Chris’ Steak House.  I’ll let you decide which ones are doing over $8 million a year.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 26th, 2006 at 11:01 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.