Who Is The Ottone Restaurant Group?

Founding
Pat Ottone founded the Ottone Restaurant Group, with the opening of Elli’s Great American Restaurant in Monterey, California. Presently, the Ottone Restaurant Group operates four individually designed restaurants throughout the Monterey Peninsula. The Ottone Restaurant Group designs its restaurants to caters to families, couples on a night out, celebrations, friends gathering for a drink after the movies, and guests to the Peninsula (C. Burwell, personal communication, February 15, 2016).

Pat Ottone’s desire to build his own company led him to throughout his entire working career to start the Ottone Restaurant Group. He spent his childhood working in his family owned and operated Salinas Tallow Company. This opportunity helped him
learn how to build a business from the ground up by working in every position possible within the company. Ultimately, Pat Ottone developed a strong work ethic and true desire to build his own business. In 1979, he graduated with a degree in accounting and from there it was only natural he would branch off to build his own company (C. Burwell, personal communication, February 15, 2016).

Over the last 30 years, Pat Ottone has built his brand, Ottone Restaurant Group, with the opening of four creative restaurants with individual concepts.
With the success of his present restaurants he is in the process of expanding out of the Monterey Peninsula toward San Jose, California. Over the years, he has accumulated many loyal customers who are responsible for the success of his restaurants to this day. Pat Ottone is a strong believer in word-of-mouth marketing and designs his restaurants to offers a one of a kind approach to great food, great service, and a great night out. Figure 1: Pat Ottone, is a photograph of the CEO and owner, Pat Ottone at the Lalla Grill in Monterey California (C. Burwell, personal communication, February 15,
2016).

Key Milestones

In 1985, Pat Ottone decided he wanted to build his own business brand, the Ottone Restaurant Group. He began this process by purchasing a franchise called Velvet Creamery. This key milestone helped him learn valuable lessons about the restaurant industry and those lessons gave him the experience needed to expand his own brand. Elli’s Great American Restaurant was then opened in 1991 in the Del Monte Shopping Center in Monterey, California. Elli’s Great American Restaurant was successful enough to allow Mr. Ottone to design a new restaurant concept, Lallapalooza, to open in downtown Monterey, California. Lallapalooza was opened in 1997, and designed as a dinner house and martini bar. Seventeen years later and Lallapalooza is still a great success (C. Burwell, personal communication, February 15, 2016).

With the success of Elli’s Great American Restaurant in Monterey, California, Mr.
Ottone opened another Elli’s Great American Restaurant in Salinas, California in 2001. Designed like its sister-restaurant, the Elli’s Great American Restaurant in Salinas has steadily grown throughout the years, grossing high profit. In 2006, the original Elli’s Great American Restaurant in Monterey closed its doors for an opportunity to rebrand in another location within the Del Monte Shopping Center. Thus, Lalla Grill was opened in 2008. The concept of Lalla Grill was to create a vacation-esque atmosphere all while located within the shopping mall. The volume of Lalla Grill has steadily climbed over the years and is proposed to maintain a high volume of sales for the years to come. With the success of the Ottone Restaurant Group, Mr. Ottone opened another restaurant concept, Lalla Oceanside Grill, in November 2015 located on Cannery Row in Monterey, California. Presently, Mr. Ottone is in the process of expanding to another location in San Jose, California. This restaurant is projected to mimic the Lalla Grill in Monterey, California(C. Burwell, personal communication, February 15,
2016).

The following figure represents a timeline of the key milestones in the development of the Ottone Restaurant Group. The dates highlighted in purple represent the millstones pertaining to Lalla Grill in Monterey, California. Lalla Grill will be the primary focus within the following strategic business analysis.