Alyssa Cwanger, Post-Gazette McCormick & Schmick's, which opened at the SouthSide Works on Sept. 23, lured away the general managers of two locally owned Monterey Bay Fish Grotto restaurants.

By Mackenzie Carpenter, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
The lines were snaking out the door a week ago Friday at the new McCormick & Schmick's restaurant at the SouthSide Works, while inside, the place was jammed with what must have been Pittsburgh's entire population of young -- and old -- professionals: Anderson Cooper look-alikes in blue blazers and khakis, pert secretaries in flirty sundresses and even a local "celebrity" or two -- Pittsburgh City Council President Gene Ricciardi, Republican U.S. Rep. Melissa Hart, Pittsburgh Film Office director Dawn Keezer.

While the crowd at the "VIP" reception sipped champagne and munched on seared Ahi tuna on cucumber rounds with wasabi mayonnaise and shrimp and crab "tater tots" (a house specialty), Bill McCormick, the upscale restaurant chain's portly, puckish CEO, stood by observing what was yet another boffo opening for his 30-year-old Portland, Ore.-based chain, which he owns with partner Doug Schmick.

Under the cherubic smile, however, is one shrewd businessman, a major general in a long-running national war that's been raging between local, independently owned dining establishments and large chains, which have moved into this region in droves in the past decade.

John Beale, Post-Gazette Glenn Hawley, owner of Monterey Bay Fish Grotto restaurants, lost his two general managers to McCormick & Schmick's restaurant at the SouthSide Works.

A staunch Bush financial supporter who has just been named the next U.S. Ambassador to New Zealand, McCormick didn't hesitate to use some sharp elbows on his way into the Pittsburgh market. One of his first actions after committing here was to hire away the general managers at his main competition: the locally owned Monterey Bay Fish Grotto restaurants in Monroeville and Mount Washington.

While some local restaurateurs say such personnel poaching is commonplace, an obviously stung Glenn Hawley, the owner of Monterey Bay, called McCormick & Schmick's action "unheard of" in Pittsburgh. Kevin Joyce, owner of The Carlton, a Downtown dining establishment, and incoming president of the Pennsylvania Restaurant Association, was more blunt.

"It's not typically the kind of business ethics people in this region practice," he said. "There's nothing illegal about it, but it's not the way restaurant owners in Pittsburgh generally operate."

McCormick was unrepentant.

"Last time I heard, Lincoln freed the slaves in 1864," he said.

Since 2000, more than 1,000 new dining seats have been added to the area's restaurant mix, most of them chains -- P.F. Chang's, Olive Garden, Mitchell's Fish House, Smokey Bones Barbecue and Grill-- where the decor is theme-park atmospheric, the food relatively inexpensive and reliably good but not exceptional, and where people are willing to wait up to two hours, blinking pagers in their hands, for a table.

Nationally, the restaurant industry has been on a roll, growing steadily for the past two years after a difficult post-9/11 period -- although the jury is still out on the effects of hurricanes Katrina and Rita -- which may be why the invasion of the chains has not resulted in mass shutterings of independent restaurants here. But mid-to-large-size "special occasion" white-tablecloth establishments are feeling the heat, and not just from chains, but from a struggling local economy and a shrinking population, both in the region and Downtown -- where a decline in office occupancy rates and the increased parking tax have dramatically hurt lunch and dinner foot traffic.

"Retail growth is great, because it gives customers new choices, but without the jobs and population growth, it's certainly making the playing field more difficult," said Joyce.

Adjusting ingredients

Even those with deep pockets are finding the climate challenging.

Roofing magnate Ed Dunlap, owner of LeMont on Mount Washington, closed the venerable Colony Restaurant in Scott last year despite a $4 million makeover, because, he says, "people didn't want to go to a neighborhood restaurant and be greeted by a ma?tre d' in a tuxedo. They still want fine dining Downtown, but they don't want it in a neighborhood."

Dunlap opened an "upscale casual" dining spot in the Scott location, Cafe Euro, similar to the one he has in the U.S. Steel Building, Downtown. Both sites are doing well, he says, noting that he hopes Cafe Euro will successfully compete with another local chain, Atria's, which has seven restaurants in the Pittsburgh area.

It's not clear if Cafe Euro will succeed where the Colony failed, but Dunlap, a multimillionaire, can afford the risks, unlike other independents, who have been struggling recently.

Poli's Restaurant, another local seafood institution, in Squirrel Hill, has cut back its hours, closing on Mondays and Tuesdays. Its owner, Larry Poli, did not return calls. Piccolo Piccolo, a longtime Downtown dining destination, closed its doors because, owner Frank Sacco has said, he wanted to focus on O'Leary's Pub and Restaurant in One Oxford Centre. La Strada, an upscale 180-seat Italian restaurant that opened to much fanfare in 2002 with a $2 million interior, has closed. But last week, owner Todd Frischling opened Trilogy in its place. While he says he's "passionate" about running a restaurant Downtown, he's also bound by a 10-year lease.

Robin Rombach, Post-Gazette Terri Sokoloff, co-owner of the Specialty Group, which specializes in the sales of bars and restaurants, has detected a big shift in the Pittsburgh dining market, with big chains and smaller places doing better business than mid-to-large-size establishments.

Such churn is the rule rather than the exception in any dining market, but restaurant broker Terri Sokoloff has detected a major shift in Pittsburghers' dining tastes in recent years, with big chains like McCormick & Schmick's and the smaller, boutique-y places -- such as Typhoon on South Highland Avenue in Shadyside or La Casa, the new tapas bar on Ellsworth Avenue in Shadyside -- doing well while mid-to-large-size establishments struggle to hold on to customers' loyalty. Because Pittsburghers are becoming more sophisticated about food and because they have more choices, they're not patronizing the old favorites so much, added Sokoloff, co-owner of the Specialty Group, which specializes in the sales of bars and restaurants.

"No one says to me, I want to open up a white tablecloth restaurant," she said. "All I hear is, 'I want to open up a casual upscale place.' The white-tablecloth standard is vanishing. What's in is not feeling like you have to dress up to go out and eat interesting food. What's out is having your plate crumb-dusted."

Old habits die hard

Dunlap, for one, is bullish on what may be the ultimate white-tablecloth dining destination in the city, LeMont, where chandeliers, mirrors, tuxedos and crumb dusters abound. But he has also seen the future of restaurants, and there's no dress code in it. So Dunlap has built an addition to LeMont that includes a lounge, club, bars, a dance floor and a stage. He says he's attracting a lot of residents who live in the Mount Washington, "guys who live in the Trimont or Grandview Towers, who like to come in two to three times a week, casually dressed, for a steak sandwich at the bar, instead of twice a year for their wives' or their mothers' birthdays."

Even Rico Lorenzini, owner of the legendary Rico's in Ross, a North Hills institution for 26 years, has felt pressure to make some changes. He got rid of his dress code last year after too many customers complained about not being allowed to dine in shorts. But his waitresses still crumb-dust the customer's place-setting after clearing plates, and his ma?tre d' still pulls the chairs out for the ladies and unfolds their napkins.

"I'm not changing," Lorenzini said flatly, noting that his building is paid for and that his solid base of repeat customers is satisfied with the decor, which hasn't changed much since he opened in 1979.

"Sure, a certain percentage of the new generation, we don't get them. They go to Cheesecake [Factory] or Bravo. We don't get the customer during the week with the expense account. But we aren't losing the ones we always had. Could I be doing better? Sure, but I'm keeping up, and I'm doing pretty good."

As "good" as McCormick and Schmick's? Probably not.

The McCormick & Schmick's chain, which was rated in 2003 as one of the two best in the country by Consumer Reports, earned $128 million in revenues in this year's first half. It raked in customers even after 9/11 while others struggled, in part because the chain specializes in fresh fish flown in from all over the world, non-risky preparations and a clubby, upscale atmosphere -- one reviewer described it as "classy pool hall" -- at prices below competitors, thanks to economies of scale and bulk purchasing.

While there are plenty of sun-dried tomatoes, poblano chiles, lemon grass and other trendy ingredients on the menu, best-selling dishes tend to be old standbys like salmon stuffed with crab, shrimp and brie. Still, M&S's Pittsburgh's executive chef, Rick Kirsop, noted that he won best dish of the year at a recent culinary event in Philadelphia, "Philly Cooks," with an Ahi Tuna Napoleon tossed in truffle oil and layered with roasted red pepper cream sauce and arugula pesto.

New link in the chain

So why Pittsburgh, why now? The region had a reputation in the 1990s among national retailers as being underbuilt, prompting a stampede of new chains to locate here, but McCormick & Schmick's held off. Then came the SouthSide Works, with its historic location and upscale shops, which McCormick felt was a good fit. "A lot of our neighbors there are currently with us in other places around the country. The Cheesecake Factory, Coach, REI, Sur La Table, these are names that are familiar to us."

	Alyssa Cwanger, Post-Gazette Above: Karen Greb of Whitehall and Bill McCormick, CEO of McCormick & Schmick's, celebrate the opening of the restaurant at the SouthSide Works. Below: A young crowd attends the opening of McCormick & Schmick's. Click photos for larger image.

"I don't think of us as being a chain, really," he added, even though there are 10 restaurants bearing his name in the Washington, D.C., area alone. If anything, each restaurant's manager and executive chef are granted a degree of autonomy unusual in such businesses, in part to ease the transition into the local community -- which may explain his decision to go after Monterey's top managers.

"We've lost people, too," said McCormick, "but they've come back to us as better managers. It's part of the business, and it happens in every industry. I've had many instances where I was frightened of competition, but it heightens the awareness of good dining and just adds to the opportunities out there."

In fact, transience is a fact of life in restaurants these days, said Bill Fuller, executive corporate chef at big Burrito Group, which owns 11 restaurants in the Pittsburgh area, from Mad Mex to Eleven in the Strip.

"I've got people who worked with me in restaurants all over town," Fuller said. McCormick & Schmick's presence will "just force all of us to try harder and do better."

That's easy for Fuller to say, countered Kevin Joyce. "But when you've got a two-restaurant company, and the out-of-town guy comes in and takes both of your top people, it's different."

Hawley thinks his two restaurants will do just fine, even though his prices are higher than McCormick & Schmick's, noting that he'll match the quality of his fresh fish, more than 50 entree selections, the variety of his sauces -- from creamy fennel to orange basil to Vodka Chambord brown sugar -- and the depth of his wine list with that chain's any day.

"This industry has lots and lots of choices, and people eat out all the time," he said. "They celebrate births and deaths and promotions and firings. You name it, we do it around food. You can do it at a chain, which has taken a product they do well and duplicate well all over the country, or you can go to a non-chain, which doesn't even try to attempt that but can provide you with a dining experience you won't find anywhere else."

Yes, but that delicious smell wafting out of a Red Robin Gourmet Burger eatery, a Ruth's Chris Steak House or a Buca di Beppo is hard for any red-blooded capitalist to ignore -- because it's the scent of money.

When the Colony was still in business, Dunlap recalls, he would "drive up Greentree Road and see the customers at the Olive Garden standing out in the parking lot holding those handheld pagers, waiting to get in so they could have 'all the pasta you can eat for $7.95,' or whatever. I mean, there's this one guy standing out there with this big gut and shorts on too tight, and he's going to go in there with this look on his face, and he's going to destroy the Olive Garden for $10, and I thought, 'I'd love to franchise that.' My God, that's a bonanza. That's the customer of today.

"If you own an Olive Garden, it's a lead pipe cinch, a sure thing. If you own a LeMont, you fight every day."

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Correction/Clarification: (Published Oct. 3, 2005) Pittsburgh City Council President Gene Ricciardi's office was reported incorrectly in this story as it was originally published in the Oct. 2, 2005 Sunday Magazine.