Slapfish founder Andrew Gruel launches new Calico Fish Residence restaurant

The Two-Handed Fish Sandwich at Calico Fish House./Photograph courtesy of American Gravy Restaurant Team.

Andrew Gruel is a rapidly-informal person, and he strategies to continue to be a quick-everyday guy.

But when an opportunity arrived up for a waterfront home on the Southern California coastline with a large patio about 24 hours soon after he exited from the rapid-informal Slapfish thought he established in 2011, it was obviously time to give total-service a spin, he mentioned.

Enter Calico Fish Dwelling, which Gruel and his wife Lauren Gruel opened previously this month in Sunset Beach front, Calif.

It is a seafood chophouse with an emphasis on sustainable (certified by the Aquaculture Stewardship Council) fish and a entire bar. The menu modifications everyday, based mostly on what’s in period and out there, and attendees can select their primary and sides, like a steakhouse. Sides are far more creative than the normal creamed spinach or sauteed asparagus, and may possibly include dishes like a lobster-stuffed baked potato, for case in point, or pretzel-crusted crab tots.

Calico has a full raw bar and simply just grilled selections, but also handheld sandwiches and burgers, for these seeking for a more rapidly chunk. The around 4,500-square foot venue has about 80 seats indoors and yet another 90-100 on the patio, and counter ordering to-go is also obtainable.

The bar at Calico Fish Home./Picture courtesy of American Gravy Restaurant Team.

It’s intended to be a flagship for Gruel’s American Gravy Restaurant Team, which involves a expanding portfolio of makes the chef options to scale—including Calico.

A spinoff of the entire-provider brand name named Calico Mini is scheduled to open in a new Kitchen area United Blend outlet in Santa Monica, Calif., this month. Calico Mini will concentrate far more on Lobster Rolls and chowder.

Also at the Mix food corridor will be two far more Gruel-created makes: 101 Burger and Lolo’s Tacos. Signing up for them a bit later on will be his Two Birds (rooster sandwiches) and Butterleaf (vegetables with no “fake meat”), two additional rapid-casual concepts that are at present operating in a food corridor in nearby Irvine, Calif.

101 Burger will be among the the concepts heading into a Kitchen United Blend food items corridor in Santa Monica this thirty day period./Photograph courtesy of American Gravy Restaurant Team.

American Gravy’s portfolio also incorporates Major Parm Pizza (New Jersey-design pizza, salads, sandwiches), which is in a food items corridor in Tustin, Calif.

Gruel options to sign-up all of the ideas for franchising this yr, such as the whole-company Calico.

And he is creating another total-support strategy: A Mediterranean brand that he can not nevertheless name. The lease hasn’t been finalized, but he’s looking at a 300- to 400-seat spot in Southern California with a comprehensive bar.

As Gruel appears to be like to scale the spouse and children of brand names he has established, he explained the key is co-tenancy, and creating the fast-relaxed manufacturers with a incredibly-targeted menu of just one or two merchandise.

He is also a believer in developing scalable ideas that really don’t require a hood—and not for the reason that of the discussion about the regulation of gas stoves.

Essentially, “The value of placing gasoline into a restaurant is genuinely the prohibitive aspect for the reason that of the hood,” he explained. “People get rid of a million pounds on a restaurant in 6 months, and then they flip it above and they cannot get pennies on the greenback for it simply because you build out that infrastructure for the mechanical and all the hood stuff, it is like $250,000.”

For Calico Mini, for illustration, breads can be toasted on an electrical griddle, soups can be designed in a commissary and Gruel is checking out the use of electric powered hoodless fryers.

The complete-services principles, nevertheless, let Gruel home to enjoy with the menu and diversify.

“I just observed with rapidly informal that rates are rising so significantly and that the margins are so skinny with what we want to be in a position to spend when it comes to labor and a living wage and all that, that we would fare a good deal improved in a larger footprint with a full bar and the prospect to have people today sit down,” he said.

Gruel claimed his company’s turnover is incredibly minimal, in element since they pay properly. Hourly personnel can make $25 to $30 per hour, for case in point, but people bigger labor fees are offset by greater retention charges.

American Gravy is also a huge supporter of veterans, who get a blanket 50% low cost, and company can spherical up their checks to assist Help you save the Brave, a method intended to reduce suicide that offers fishing visits to veterans dealing with submit-traumatic tension.

Gruel and his wife also founded the nonprofit 86 Restaurant Struggle during the pandemic to aid restaurant staff members in want by delivering free of charge foods.

These are points that can scare off investors, Gruel stated, which is why he is “bootstrapping” advancement with the help of buddies and spouse and children for now.

“My wife and I want to do as much as we can ourselves, at the very least in the beginning, so we can stick to the roots of what we’re executing,” he stated. “We’re getting it one particular day at a time, and what operates, is effective.”

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