Pizza chief big on Florida

When Joseph “Joey” Ciolli decided to expand Grimaldi's Pizzeria to Florida, he picked Fort Myers for the first location.

Some questioned Ciolli's decision because when the restaurant opened in Fort Myers two years ago, the area was in the depths of the real estate and consumer spending had fallen. “Everybody kept saying how bad the recession was down there,” Ciolli recalls.

But Ciolli reasoned that if the Fort Myers restaurant performed as well as he thought it would, he could be successful in other Florida locations.

“I like to challenge our brand,” says the president and CEO of the Scottsdale, Ariz.,-based pizza restaurant company.

Turned out Ciolli was right. Grimaldi's has since opened five locations in Florida and it's planning to open a sixth location at the Westshore Mall in Tampa. (The company now has 28 locations in six states.)

Of course, it helped that shopping-center rents fell dramatically during the downturn and Ciolli seized the opportunity where others feared to expand. “Three or four years ago you could get great deals,” Ciolli says.

Ciolli's says his strategy is to forge relationships with major landlords, with whom he negotiates a master lease. Then, he tweaks the lease for each new location depending on the demographics. “We look for lifestyle center where they put restaurants in the front; that's really important for us,” Ciolli says. “We want to be accessible when the mall is closed.”