Piada Italian Street Food is bringing its piadas, pastas and salads to Florida and its first location will be in the new Town Center Promenade.
The 30-acre Promenade of restaurants, retail stores, hotels and apartments is slated for development along Town Center Parkway opposite the St. Johns Town Center.
Piada describes itself as an upscale fast-casual Italian eatery. Chris Doody, co-founder in 1992 of the Bravo Brio Restaurant Group Inc., created Piada in 2010, several years after leaving Bravo Brio.
“He had the idea of bringing fast-casual to the Italian sector,” said spokesman Matt Eisenacher.
Doody traveled to Rimini, in Northern Italy, where he ate the piadinas, or piadas, hence the name.
Based in Columbus, Ohio, Piada operates 26 restaurants in five states. Eisenacher said Friday along with Jacksonville, the company also is interested in opening in Gainesville, Tallahassee and Tampa.
“Florida has been on our radar for quite some time,” he said.
Piada intends to open in mid-2017, depending on the development timetable of the Promenade.
A Piada restaurant averages 2,500 to 2,700 square feet in size, employs 35-50 people and seats about 50-60 people.
Piada restaurants feature a modern Italian design with marble, white oak furniture, LED lighting and stained concrete floors. Eisenacher said the company does not disclose investment costs.
Eisenacher said Piada has continued to look at area sites, but is not dedicated to opening a specific number of stores in a market.
“Our No. 1 goal is we want to be great where we open,” he said.
The menu features piadas, which are wraps baked on a stone grill and hand-rolled with fresh ingredients; pasta bowls; chopped salads; the Piada meatball; seasonal entrees; and sides, including calamari and soup. Some locations serve beer and wine.
Eisenacher said the average check is less than $10.
He said Doody created the concept after selling his stake in Bravo Brio and saw the growth in the fast-casual market, which is considered a hybrid of quick-service and casual dining.
In December, the Catteron private-equity firm in Connecticut invested growth capital in Piada, but terms were not disclosed.
Piada Italian Street Food is the second restaurant confirmed for Town Center Promenade. Newk’s Eatery, already with a Jacksonville presence, said in December it would open there.
Atlanta-based Core Property Capital bought the land Jan. 19.
Tom Mundy with The Shopping Center Group LLC said the Promenade would include a national grocery store, coffee chain, hamburger concept, Brazilian steakhouse, mattress store, dental practice, restaurant, fast-food site and the fast-casual Italian food concept.
He declined to identify any of the stores or restaurants. He said most of the leases have been signed.
Mundy said there would be two hotels and a 6,000-square-foot, full-service lakefront restaurant already represented in the market. Core Property Capital would develop a multifamily project.
Earlier plans showed a fitness center and bank, but Mundy said the fitness center site will instead be used for a hotel.
He said three of the restaurants will be new to the market — the Italian concept, the Brazilian steakhouse and the full-serve hamburger concept.
Red Robin Gourmet Burgers Inc. has confirmed interest in Jacksonville and fits the national-hamburger description.
Mundy said the build-to-suit land would be ready for developers by March 2017 and he expects stores to open in the second quarter of 2017.
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