RESTAURANT

The brands have not appealed to younger diners, and years of declining sales — and the ultimate sale of Bravo Brio to a private equity investment group earlier this year — hinted at a need to adapt the two concepts.

The menu is where change needs to start, said Bob Welcher, president of Restaurant Consultants Inc.

“Somewhere along the line, they fell behind,” Welcher said. “Keeping up with trends is very important. They need to attract that younger diner, which I think they were losing.”

Welcher said that change is a must, but also said the company should tread carefully on customer favorites.

Some items will remain, but the recipes likely will change as chefs led by John Imbriolo, who penned the menu transformation at Romano’s Macaroni Grill during Blum’s tenure there, figure out better ways to create well-loved dishes. They also will pare menu items that don’t work.

“We’re going to be making favorites even better,” Blum said. “We’re going to look very carefully and keep the The new owners plan to retool the menus at Bravo and Brio restaurants. In addition, the Bravo chain is being repositioned as a family-friendly, mid-range chain; Brio is being repositioned as more upsale.

things people really like. We have some things that people don’t like, and we will take those off and replace them with things they will like better.”

He declined to go into detail about items that will be added, removed or tweaked.

The new menus will be phased in during the next 12 months. The inspiration for the refreshed items will be Italy’s Amalfi Coast around the city of Salerno, just south of Naples. Blum promises the dishes will be

authentically Italian.

“We’re going to be in Italy a lot more than what has happened in the past,” he said.

Blum also wants to better differentiate the two concepts. Brio will become “even more polished,” he said, and more upscale. Bravo will become more family-friendly and positioned in the middle of the casual-dining market.

Bravo and Brio were often indistinguishable, Welcher said. Much of the food was close enough to pass at

either establishment, though Brio’s decor has held up better over the years than Bravo’s dark rooms and crumbling-column decor.

“It will be interesting to see how they do it. The old Italian look and Roman ruins is dead and should have been changed years ago,” Blum said. “If they research this properly and put their finger on some trends and learn from mistakes, they’ll be in good shape.”