Mr. Micatrotto: BUCA began as BUCA Little Italy in Minneapolis, Minnesota at a downtown restaurant in 1993. The name BUCA di BEPPO came about actually three years later when Phil Roberts, the founder of the company, and myself, an investor and the present CEO and Chairman, came on board and we changed it to BUCA di BEPPO. BUCA di BEPPO actually means Joe's basement. The concept is Italian in nature. We refer to ourselves as an immigrant Southern Italian, family style, dinner-only restaurant, which really describes our niche. Our food is not your typical Italian, while it does have all the traditional Italian items. We really go well beyond that. Witness the fact that we spend about one month a year in Italy on two separate occasions, studying and creating new items, immigrating new food, if you will, into our menu. In fact, our menus are on the walls and we feature a number of specials on a daily basis. The food is also all family style. There are no individual portions at BUCA di BEPPO. Everything is served on large platters, so that while two people can dine comfortably, all the food serves between two to six people. It is dinner only, but we like to say that dinner is psychological, not chronological. It depends on where you live. For instance, on Sundays we open at noon in all of our restaurants. But for the most part, it is an evening meal ' we open at 5:00 PM during the week and 4:00 PM on Saturdays. And that really plays into the type of concept we are because we consider ourselves a concept of indulgence where people really get to share. When I joined the team in 1995, we had four restaurants. And that's when we really began the national expansion to be able to tweak at the concept, if you will, and we began to build the management infrastructure at that time also. The current company, as of today ' we're opening our 42nd restaurant. Last year, 1999, we had a nearly 79% new unit growth rate. We are the fastest growing full-service restaurant concept in the United States. But more important than the unit growth is the sales and guest count growth. And those grew last year at 86%, so that was even better. When your sales are ahead of your unit growth count, then you're in really good shape.
Tickers included in this excerpt: BUCA
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