Why This Experienced Hotelier Decided to Franchise with Pizzeria Uno

Victor Ravago is a longtime hotelier. He has been involved with third-party management companies for the last 16 years and co-founded Bravo Hospitality Group with his partner Karim Khoja in 2019.

In 2020, he decided it was time to bring a strong food and beverage franchise to his hotel space. When he learned about the franchise opportunity with Pizzeria Uno, the neighborhood pizzeria franchise known worldwide as the birthplace of Chicago-style deep dish, it was a no-brainer.

This year, Bravo Hospitality Group opened the first Pizzeria Uno to model the original Chicago deep dish recipe outside its iconic Downtown location, which opened nearly 80 years ago.

“We knew we wanted to bring together that franchise model and the food and beverage space of our hotels,” said Ravago. “We wanted to work with a brand that embodied the market and appealed to our customer base. Pizzeria Uno checked all the boxes and was the right fit.”

With this brand recognition and beloved consumer offering in place, hotel owners like Ravago and the Bravo Hospitality Group can make more from their food and beverage program. Pizzeria Uno’s business model translates to five lucrative revenue streams for hotel operators:

• increased revenue from dine-in for hotel guests

• take-out for hotel guests

• take-out and/or delivery sales from the local community

• dine-in revenue from people in the surrounding area who typically would not come to dine at a hotel restaurant

• the potential addition of group sales driven by an experienced group sales team and system.

For Ravago, the decision to franchise was made all the easier by the level of support he received from the team at Pizzeria Uno. From the initial inquiry to opening day, he felt that the franchisor’s flexibility and openness to being creative signaled that they would be great partners.

Something that sets the company apart is the level of collaboration between the franchisor and the franchisee. For example, Ravago noted that, when deciding on design elements of the buildout, he had specific ideas on what would fit with the existing hotel, and Pizzeria Uno gave them flexibility as franchisees but in a way that stayed true to the brand.

“There's a very collaborative mindset from the franchise side,” said Director of Marketing Chris Dellamarggio. “We want to get feedback from folks out there in their local community because they're connecting with the guests in that area. We take all franchisee feedback into account and work that into some of the decisions we make moving forward.”

According to Fred Houston, Vice President of Franchise Operations at Pizzeria Uno, this collaborative process starts when Pizzeria Uno first meets its prospective franchisees on discovery day. It is important for the brand and the franchisee to ensure they are aligned on their vision and values. “I think that in order to have a relationship that works between a franchisee and a franchisor, both sides bring ideas to the table, and we work together to find solutions that are advantageous for both,” he said.

With support from corporate and a lot of hard work, Bravo Hospitality Group has found great success from franchising with Pizzeria Uno. Even before its official grand opening, the hotel saw nearly double the food and beverage sales that they saw pre-conversion.

Moving forward, Ravago and Bravo Hospitality Group are continuing to focus on stabilizing operations, including staffing, product quality and service. The group sees an opportunity to grow revenues within its existing restaurant by looking at its client and marketing initiatives. They are also discussing opportunities at trade shows to target tours and travel groups in the Chicago area. In the future, Ravago noted that they are open to additional development opportunities with the brand.

“One of the things that really struck me about Victor and Karim is that they're very passionate about the brand — and that's what hooked me,” said Houston. “When I flew out to meet them and listened to what they wanted to do and why they were doing it, I felt that they were the right partners to try this with. Not just because of the resources they had, but also in part because of the passion they had for the brand.”

Based in Boston, Massachusetts, Uno Restaurant Holdings Corporation includes 80 company-owned and franchised UNO Pizzeria & Grill restaurants located in 18 states, and the District of Columbia, India, and Saudi Arabia. UNO is all about connecting people over pizza – from its famous Chicago Deep Dish, which UNO invented in 1943, to its Chicago Thin Crust, to its gluten-free and vegan pizzas. The Company also operates Uno Foods, a consumer packaged foods business that supplies supermarkets, airlines, movie theaters, hotels, airports, and travel plazas with frozen UNO-branded products.