Restaurant expansion set to create 60 jobs

 

© The Herald Originally published: 30/1/2010

Scottish restaurant business Di Maggio’s is expanding into American-style chop houses, having increased its sales amid the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression days of the 1930s.

Di Maggio’s plans to invest more than £1m in its first chop house in the former Anchor Line head office building at 12 to 16 St Vincent Place, Glasgow, across the road from one of its Cafe Andaluz Spanish tapas outlets. This will serve steaks, burgers and meat on the bone and the concept will be rolled out elsewhere in central Scotland if it proves successful. The name of the chop house venture is being kept under wraps.

Tony Conetta and Mario Gizzi, directors of Di Maggio’s, revealed the company’s latest expansion plans to The Herald as they released figures showing a 10.5% rise in turnover to £19.26 million in the 12 months to April 2009.

Conetta and Gizzi are understood to have been confident from the start of the recession that their business would fare relatively well, viewing it as a value-for-money proposition for family dining in tough economic times.

Operating profits at Di Maggio’s increased to £912,000 in the 12 months to April 2009, from £885,000 in the prior year, although this would have been aided by a fall in directors’ remuneration from £2.75m to £2.025m.

Di Maggio’s said its directors’ confidence in the business had been underlined by a doubling of the sum they reinvested personally, to £1.19m from £500,000 in the prior financial year.

Pre-tax losses narrowed to £9000, from £27,000 in the previous financial year. The level of directors’ remuneration deducted in arriving at these pre-tax loss numbers highlights the strong underlying profitability of the business.

Di Maggio’s started life in 1985 with Italian restaurants in Shawlands, on the south side of Glasgow, and in the city’s west end. Both of these restaurants celebrate their 25th anniversary this year.

The company now has 20 restaurants across the central belt, including a Cafe Andaluz outlet in George Street in Edinburgh. Di Maggio’s recently refurbished its eponymous restaurants in East Kilbride and Hamilton.

Di Maggio’s employs more than 450 staff, with a further 60 jobs being created in the new chop house which is scheduled to open in the autumn.

The company said the planned 200-seat restaurant in St Vincent Place would take its inspiration from the informal family chop houses which have long been popular across the US.

Conetta and Gizzi researched the format extensively, visiting Denver, Texas and Las Vegas before deciding on the final format for the new Glasgow restaurant.

Gizzi said: "We wanted to bring something new to Scotland which maintains our ethos of high quality family dining at affordable prices. Tasty, unpretentious food never goes out of fashion and it was clear from our trips to the United States that this type of restaurant remains extremely popular, despite all the economic problems there."