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Jessica Curtis helps small restaurant groups make the leap to the national stage. Curtis was recently named co-leader of CBRE’s U.S. restaurant practice, where she specializes in emerging concepts. Curtis represented Barteca Restaurants on expansion of its Bartaco and Barcelona Wine Bar concepts to more than 40 new locations, including a planned Bartaco at 25 Thomson Place in Boston’s Fort Point. Curtis has also worked with Island Creek Oyster Bar, Row 34, Shake Shack, Caffe Nero and Tasty Burger on their real estate expansion. Before joining CBRE in April, Curtis was a senior managing director for Newmark Knight Frank.
Q: How do you define an emerging concept and what is your specialty as a broker?
A: I’ve been doing restaurant work for about 10 years now with a national focus. The difference here (at CBRE) is I’m truly co-leading with one other broker, so I’ll be spending much more time connecting dots and building more of a flow of restaurant deals across multiple markets.
The focus is helping emerging restaurant concepts grow from three or five units to 50 units or so. One of the success stories was Barteca, starting with them at store number five and now we have about 50 signed leases. They are selling to Del Frisco’s for $325 million, so that’s a nice success story for us.
Q: What does the acquisition by Del Frisco’s mean for the future of Barteca Restaurants and their concepts?
A: It’ll still remain strong. Del Frisco’s is excited because they offer a different price point, so that gives them a breadth of customer. We’ve been doing eight to 10 stores a year for the two brands, and I think that’s going to pull back to six or seven. We’ll be targeting big cities we haven’t hit yet.
Q: What criteria did they have for sites?
A: First and foremost, the task was identifying their core customer base. What did the people in the restaurant look like? Who are they? Certain groups like the Amtrak corridor because it gives them more freedom of movement among stores. We always like to cluster locations. We had to sign markets that could support more than one store.
Q: How are retail landlords using restaurants to offset the decline of traditional anchor stores?
A: It depends on the size of the box. Some of the department stores are enormous. The bulk of the food halls we’re seeing are in the 10,000- to 20,000-square-foot range, so it’s a landlord taking a chunk of the box. Most of the landlords are looking at the boxes as an opportunity to do something more dramatic, like co-working or residential towers. We’re seeing more entertainment, high-end movie theaters, Kings bowling, mini-golf concepts.
With Instagram and foodie culture, I feel like brands’ longevity is a challenge. The lifespan becomes shorter as customers become finicky and look for the next cool thing. That’s definitely a concern long-term, for people building out restaurants for $2.5 million: to stay relevant. The master operator has the ability to change out the concepts to stay fresh. You won’t see a 10-year deal in a food hall.
On the non-restaurant side, the incubator retail hall gives them a way to test out concepts with shorter-term leases.
Q: It sounds similar to the resurgence of independent hotels in part because travelers can research brands through sites like TripAdvisor.
A: The buzzword the last three years has been authenticity. It’s driven by Millennials, but all customers are looking for a more authentic experience. They want to know the chef, where the food is coming from.
Q: What’s the next style of cuisine that’s likely to become a foodie craze?
A: There’s some brands on the horizon that are very exciting. We’ve been seeing a big push in Asian noodles and the poke segment. One of my clients out of Florida, Hawkers Asian Street Fare, is a group eating format with bold flavors.
With Asian food, when you go to the local Chinese restaurant you have no idea where the food is coming from. We’re going to see a lot more transparency in ethnic foods and interesting groups coming out making that more mainstream.
Choolah is kind of like a Chipotle for Indian food. Their kitchen is completely glass so you can see them preparing everything, and demystifying Indian cuisine. They are trying to make it modern and transparent. We’re seeing a push in the more specialized Asian foods. You’ll see Laotian restaurants, Filipino, other subcategories where customers will learn the differences.
The death of Anthony Bourdain: people felt that because he was one of the few people who exposed the American audience to subtleties between different foods. There’s passion about that and people who care about where the food comes from and the story behind that.
Curtis’ Five Favorite Boston Eats:
- The hands-down best lobster roll at Row 34 in Fort Point
- Joanne Chang’s sticky buns at Flour Bakery
- Jamon croquettes and chicken pimentos at Barcelona Wine Bar in South End and Brookline
- A French 75 and the beef tartare at Les Sablons in Cambridge
- Ruka spicy tuna sushi and the corazon de ribeye at Ruka in Back Bay
