Let's connect!
Enjoy Mill Valley
  • HOME
  • EVENTS & GUIDES
    • 2020-21 EMV Guide
    • 2020 Mill Valley Wine, Beer & Gourmet Food Tasting
    • Winterfest >
      • Activities, Food & Entertainment
      • About Winterfest
    • Calendar
    • Special Events
  • EAT
  • Stay
  • VISIT
    • Muir Woods
    • PLAY
    • Tour
    • Map
    • PRESS
  • SHOP
    • Enjoy Mill Valley Store
    • Shopping Areas
    • Apparel and Jewelry
    • Automotive
    • Banking & Financial Services
    • Biz, Consumer & Professional Services
    • Beauty & Grooming
    • Fitness & Sports
    • Food & Wine
    • Home & Garden
    • Kids & Pets
    • Health & Wellness
    • Nonprofit Organizations
    • Real Estate
    • Specialty Shops
  • A&E
  • EMV Films
  • BLOG
  • Mill Valley Chamber
  • City of Mill Valley
  • CONTACT US
  • Subscribe
  • Advertise on Enjoy Mill Valley
  • ShopMV

La Boulangerie Partners Shift Gears, Target Second Quarter Opening for Apizza in Former Gira Polli Space

2/6/2020

0 Comments

 
Picture
Clockwise from top left, the 9-inch personal margherita pizza from apizza, apizza's location on Fillmore Street in San Francisco, and the vacant former Gira Polli space at 590 East Blithedale.
Since 2017, there hasn’t been a more visibly vacant commercial space in Mill Valley – save for the blank canvas that is the mother of all retaining walls at 500 Miller Ave. – than the former Gira Polli space at 590 East Blithedale and Camino Alto.

Bay Area food industry vets Pascal Rigo and Nicolas Bernadi are hoping to change that in the next few months.

In 2018, the pair leased the building with the hopes of making it one of the locations for La Boulangerie, the post-Starbucks, slightly renamed rebirth of their popular La Boulange cafes and eateries. They’d hoped to open by the end of 2018 in the space that once housed a Der Wienerschnitzel and a Burger Chef before it was Gira Polli. 

For a variety of reasons, they’ve shifted gears and are now targeting it for the second location for apizza, a concept focused on simple, affordable food. They hope to open early here in the second quarter of 2020. Apizza opened in Sept. 2019 at 2043 Fillmore Street in San Francisco.

Bernadi says apizza is built around the mission that “everybody should have the right to eat products that are healthy and they can afford. We believe in apizza for everyone—for every taste, every budget, every day.”
Picture
​“Our pizzas are delicious, nutritious and extremely affordable,” Bernadi says, pointing to their staple, a 9-inch, margherita personal pizza with organic dough and organic tomato sauce for just $2.75. “We believe it will be a fantastic place for people to meet up after school/work or grab dinner on their way home, with online ordering. We are really excited to bring this concept to the Mill Valley community.”

The concept’s quest for affordability demanded an overhaul of every element of the business, Bernadi says. “We’ve been working on this concept for more than two years. We learned so much from that experience with Starbucks. We now know that it’s possible to make extremely good food at scale.

That overhaul included leveraging centralized food manufacturing by leaning heavily on their 70,000-square-foot bakery near SFO, where all of the dough is produced and delivered to each location frozen before adding toppings and baking the pizzas; minimizing the amount of equipment at their restaurants and thus minimizing training of staff; and using pre-cooked sous-vide meats, among others.

Bernadi says all pizzas are served in compostable packaging to minimize costs and environmental impact. 

“We moved tons of the complexities of the operation and put that burden on ourselves and our food partners,” Bernadi says. “We’ve simplified as much of the operations as possible.”

Bernadi says he and Rigo are trying to innovate their way through the array of modern obstacles facing food-serving businesses in the Bay Area, particularly labor and real estate costs. “The ones that are going to be successful are that can build stores with less money, a smaller footprint and less-skilled labor,” he says.

The menu starts with customers picking a 9-inch pizza or one folded in half; then either an organic wheat, organic sprouted wheat, or gluten free crust; and then a pizza, including pepperoni, la royale with cheese (cheeseburger), roasted veggie, bbq chicken and more, along with a number of substitutes, including impossible meat.

Apizza will also have unsweetened fruit puree drinks in a variety of flavors, as well as sparkling or still water instead of a traditional soda machine. They’ll offer discounts to customers who bring their own cups. Apizza will serve dessert from Loving Cup, the frozen yogurt company from Mill Valley residents Liz and Dez Fielder that La Boulangerie bought in Sept. 2018.

Picture
​The innovations and concepts being launched by Rigo and Bernadi comes on the heels of the July 2018 news that James Park and Michael Staenberg, co-owners of Denver-based fast casual restaurant Garbanzo Mediterranean Fresh, “made a substantial investment and acquired an equity interest in” La Boulangerie. The Garbanzo investment will propel the chain’s “even broader expansion, at an accelerated clip” that will go beyond the Bay Area, Rigo said at the time.

It’s the latest chapter in a whirlwind journey for the Bordeaux-born Rigo, who worked as a baker in a number of restaurants in Paris before moving to Los Angeles in 1989, first baking bread for an old friend, the chef Michel Richard, and later for some of the best restaurants in LA, according to the New York Times.
​
Rigo eventually grew the business to 23 La Boulange locations and then sold it to Starbucks in 2013 for $100 million, as the Seattle coffee conglomerate sought to use Rigo’s baked goods expertise to improve its offering. Within two years, Rigo left the company and Starbucks closed all La Boulange locations, reversing its announced intention to open hundreds of La Boulange locations around the country.

In a twist, La Boulange’s sale to Starbucks also gave birth to the growing retail side of Equator Coffees’ business. Equator had been the coffee roaster for La Boulange’s 19 locations for 13 years, so the Starbucks takeover gutted 12 percent of Equator’s revenue and inspired founders Helen Russell and Brooke McDonnell to begin opening their own cafe, starting at Proof Lab in Tam Junction and now a thriving chain that spans eight cafes in the Bay Area and a robust catering business. 

La Boulangerie started with the original Pine Street location in September 2015, followed by spots on Fillmore Street, Union Street and in Cole Valley, Hayes Valley and Noe Valley. A pair of locations in SF’s Financial District followed, and then in the Rockridge section of Oakland, a first in that neighborhood for Rigo.

Bernadi says he’s extremely optimistic about opening a pizza in a town full of them.

“Everybody eats pizza, and we appeal to every kind of demographic in a way, particularly those seeking delicious, nutritious food at a fraction of the price of many others,” he says.

The 411: Apizza is targeting an opening in the second quarter of 2020 at 590 East Blithedale Ave. MORE INFO.

0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture

    Subscribe to the free Enjoy Mill Valley Blog

    * required
    Click here to subscribe to the free Enjoy Mill Valley Blog by Email!

    RSS Feed

    Blog Archives

    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013

    Categories

    All
    142 Throckmorton
    Art
    Arts & Entertainment
    City Council
    City Of Mill Valley
    County Of Marin
    Depot Plaza
    Downtown Mill Valley
    Emergency Preparedness
    First Tuesday Artwalk
    Food & Drink
    Holidays
    Kiddo!
    Live Music
    Local Laws
    Marin Mommies
    Marin Theatre Company
    Miller Avenue
    Mill Valley Fall Arts Festival
    Mill Valley Film Festival
    Mill Valley History
    Mill-valley-in-the-news
    Mill Valley Library
    Mill Valley Market
    Mill Valley School District
    Mount Tamalpais
    MV Chamber Biz Buzz
    Parks & Recreation
    Philanthropy
    Public Restrooms
    Restaurants
    Shopping
    Strawberry Village
    Sweetwater Music Hall
    Tam High
    Tam Junction
    Tam Valley
    The Redwoods
    Volunteerism

Picture
   
85 Throckmorton Avenue
Mill Valley, Callifornia 94941
415.388.9700
info@millvalley.org



Copyright 2018 Mill Valley Chamber of Commerce & Visitor Center
All images used with permission and/or source attribution.
Site Design by Linda Rosso Marketing and Communications