Jacqueline Viel Joins Maverick

Starting Tuesday July 1, 2008, Maverick welcomes Jaqueline Viel to our team of talented Architects and Interior Designers. With over 5 years of interior design experience, she excels in hospitality projects - an area of Design in which she has focused her recent career. I am sure she will be a great addition to our staff - we look forward to working with her.

In other news from the Maverick office....

* Splitsville in South Miami, Florida is well into construction and is starting to really come together. The targeted opening of the second location of this emerging brand should be September of 2008.
* The Galerie Restaurant and Mona Lisa lobby have officially opened in Celebration, Florida. The final product is something we at Maverick can be very proud of as well as the owners and operators of this fantastic property near Disney.
* We continue with the development of the East Park Mall restaurant and hotel concept work in Lake Nona as well as the next 2 locations of Harmoni Market with John Gabrovic and John Gray. Initial concept sketching and planning is well under-way.

Lastly, I wanted to take this time to offer my sincere congratulations to Tim and Nancy Cushman of Boston, Massachusetts. Tim and Nancy are co-owners of O-Ya in the leather district in Boston. O-Ya is a small Japanese inspired restaurant that is in my opinion - the best meal I have ever eaten. Tim and I first met while he was the corporate chef at Lettuce Entertain You Enterprises, Inc in Chicago. Over the years - we crossed paths on such concepts as Maggiano's, Splitsville, Tinatapa's and Stump's Supper Club. Recently, O-Ya was named by the New York Times as the Best New Restaurant in the United States outside of Manhattan and Tim was named one if the best new chef's in America by Food and Wine. I am very happy for both Tim and Nancy - they deserve every accolade they receive.

"I was at this restaurant. The sign said "breakfast anytime". So I ordered French Toast in the Renaissance".....Steven Wright


Raymond R. Schaefer, AIA/NCARB/IIDA
President / Founder
Maverick Architecture & Design, LLC

When times are tough - we seem to be busy!

With the economy continuing to slow in most market segments, our business outlook at Maverick continues to be solid and is showing signs of increasing over the previous 12 month time frame. Obviously as fuel costs continue to increase along with food costs, many consumers tend to spend their income in local restaurants in lieu of destination vacations, large consumer products and expensive grocery products. The hospitality industry has traditionally seen modest gains in food and beverage sales during tough economic times. However, this time around it does not seem to be across the board improvement. Specific national locations, businesses with high volume liquor to food ratios and concepts that have a great quality to value perception are the only gainers.

Over the past five to seven years, the restaurant business has seen an explosion of new concepts, new owners and to be honest - an overall lack of quality for the consumer. The rash of franchised concepts to owners and developers that do not know the restaurant business has created an over-saturated market. Fortunately, in my opinion, the slow times we see now remove some of the poorer operated and poorly conceived concepts in the marketplace. We are seeing this play out in the closings, consolidations and slowed development plans for many national and local players.

The owners and developers that are currently purchasing concepts and locations or moving forward with expansion plans - will be the ones ahead of the game when the market opens back up in the next 12 to 18 months. The current lease deals for expansion and land costs are down now as can be expected - thus creating a development value as well as positive long term lease deals.

As always....great food, great service and great atmosphere will continue to drive great concepts. Now more than ever - it is incredibly important.

"If God had wanted man to play soccer, he wouldn't have given us arms!" Mike Ditka

Raymond R. Schaefer, AIA/NCARB/IIDA
President/Founder
Maverick Architecture & Design, LLC

Maverick's New Look

We at Maverick are excited to be going "live" with our new-look website. This new look has branded through to new brochures, new business cards, letterhead and general imaging. We of course would like to thank Evolve - Grace, Mark, Roxanne and the talented staff at the Orlando office created our new vision beyond our expectations. We need to continue to do great projects to live up to the work Evolve created!

As far as what is happening at Maverick...

* I spent a few days out in Las Vegas at ICSC two weeks ago - please read future blog entries about trends, thoughts and an overview from this year's event.
* Kelli and Marianne are heading to Chicago this Weekend for Neocon - we can't wait for them to get back into Florida and show us the new materials out in the marketplace as well as the stories of the parties and concepts they visited.
* Mona Lisa Suite Hotel is now open in Celebration. The restaurant spaces are undergoing inspections and we expect opening in the next few weeks. It is really looking great.
* Splitsville is under construction in South Miami - it is shaping up as well. Splitsville Dallas and Arlington Texas are starting construction in the next month - and since everything is big in Texas - those units will be great.
*Hillcrest Auto Mall has just opened in Huntsville, Texas - the signage and unique hometown Texas look will hopefully be well received by local car buyers.
* Maverick has just been retained in the past few days to help consult and develop several new restaurant concepts in East Park, a Pinnacle development in the Lake Nona area. Leading the charge on the restaurant side will be the second Orlando location for Harmoni Market. We are looking forward to creating a dining destination for the Southeast area of Orlando.

As I will try to make an entry into the VIP Lounge a few times a week, one item that I will always try to keep consistent...a quote of the day...

"No one goes there anymore, it's too crowded!", Yogi Berra.

Raymond R. Schaefer, AIA/NCARB/IIDA
President/Founder
Maverick Architecture & Design, LLC