Waitress Laura Thompson, Rochester, serves up lunch at the always crowded and popular Dinosaur Bar-B-Que in downtown Rochester
By MATTHEW DANEMAN- Rochester Democrat and Chronicle
John Stage winces at the phrase "restaurant chain." To the co-founder and CEO of Dinosaur Bar-B-Que, it has connotations of cookie-cutter building designs and identical menus.
Instead, Stage prefers to say that Dinosaur is building " a collective."
Dinosaur, which started in Syracuse in 1988 and has been a downtown Rochester institution since its opening in 1998, is expanding its presence in the greater New York City metropolitan market. And it has eyes on Buffalo.
The roadhouse-themed bar and restaurant opened a Harlem location in 2004 and a restaurant in Troy, near Albany, in 2010.
It plans an opening of its fifth location, in Newark, N.J., in April. The Stamford, Conn., store should be open this fall, Stage said, with Brooklyn following in 2013.
"The growth we're doing is not crazy growth," Stage said. "We can do this."
Dinosaur's explosion of expansion comes as the barbeque business is booming in New York.
Locally in recent months, Rochester's Sticky Lips Pit BBQ Restaurant opened a Henrietta location, while Texas Blues BBQ on Rochester's east side and Moonshine Barbeque in Penfield began operation.
"New York City, there never used to be any barbeque," Stage said. "Now there's 20, 30."
But that more crowded marketplace has meant more of a rising tide for barbeque instead of increased head-to-head competition, he said.
"Whatever Sticky Lips has done hasn't hurt us. You do your own thing, you'll have your own niche."
Stage said catering work in Newark in 2008 first got him interested in that market, which is only 20-some minutes away from the Harlem location in upper Manhattan but has enough population that it wouldn't cannibalize Harlem's sales.
That same logic also resulted in Dinosaur setting its sights on Brooklyn and Stamford.
Dinosaur has no plans for additional locations in markets such as Rochester. "I really don't want to be in here and the suburbs. I like being in the urban environment," Stage said.
The privately held company is in the early stages of scouting potential Buffalo sites. Beyond Buffalo, "That's as far as my (expansion) plan goes."
Dinosaur is in the midst of expanding its Rochester site on Court Street, adding a 50-seat second-floor area for parties, banquets and overflow. Stage said that area should be open by April.
A New York City native who moved back there in 2002, Stage runs the Dinosaurs from his Harlem location and from his Syracuse apartment, spending days at a time upstate or downstate.
Each Dinosaur has its own general manager who runs the restaurant and who shares in the profits. Above them are directors of operations who oversee two to three restaurants each.
That senior management team is what's allowing for the expansion, Stage said.
"I've spent probably the last two years hiring some great poeple and building a great infrastructure. You can't pull (an expansion) off without great people."
By MATTHEW DANEMAN- Rochester Democrat and Chronicle