Brio, Bravo HQ to move to Orlando

Former Olive Garden president Brad Blum is moving the headquarters of Brio Tuscan Grille and Bravo Cucina Italiana to downtown Orlando after taking the helm of the company earlier this year.

Brio and Bravo will be the flagship restaurants of a new company called FoodFirst Global Restaurants, which will look to acquire and develop more brands, Blum said Wednesday.

Blum, who also bought a partial stake in Bravo Brio Restaurant Group in March, is a longtime Orlando resident and was the head of Olive Garden at Darden Restaurants from 1994 to 2012. He also was on the board of directors at Orlando-based Darden from 2014 until March, when he left for the new company.

“It’s no secret I’m a fan of Italian restaurant brands,” Blum said.

The move will mean 40 new jobs in Orlando as the company shifts its corporate headquarters. Brio and Bravo have about 110 locations nationwide. It’s currently based out of Columbus, Ohio.

The new offices for FoodFirst and its subsidiary restaurants will be in the CNL II tower near Orlando City Hall. The company also plans to develop a culinary training center nearby, he said.

“We’re going to do a lot of recruiting in the area to get the best and brightest people,” he said.

Bravo plans to move its executive team to Orlando starting next week. A large part of the Brio and Bravo support team will remain in Columbus and then transition to Orlando over time, said Blum, chairman and CEO of FoodFirst.

The move to Orlando comes as Blum is looking to position Brio and Bravo as natural food restaurants, focused on healthy and environmentally friendly meals. The company’s new tagline is “Good Food for the Planet.”

“These are brands that have been revered in the past, and we studied this and thought this was a terrific buying opportunity,” Blum said.

Blum is a part owner in the new company along with GP Investments Ltd., a private equity firm based in Brazil. But Blum said he has taken a large investment in the new company and FoodFirst won’t be operated with a goal of being sold off.

Brio has two locations in Central Florida, one at Winter Park Village and another near Mall at Millenia. Bravo Cucina Italiana closed its only Orlando-area location last month when the lease on the location on Sand Lake Road expired.

Both brands are undergoing an identity shift. Brio is being rebranded from Bravo Tuscan Grille to Brio Italian Mediterranean and targeting the upscale casual dining niche. Bravo Cucina Italiana, a more mainstream brand, is going to be called Cucina Fresh Italian.

Both have suffered declining sales before Blum took over, but he hopes to turn around sales with revamped menus and a “brilliant with the basics focus,” Blum said. That same phrase has been a favorite with Darden CEO Gene Lee as Olive Garden rebounded four years ago.

Blum has lived in Orlando near Lake Virginia since he became the head of Olive Garden in 1994 and also took turns as CEO of Burger King Corp. and Romano’s Macaroni Grill.