Famed Miami developer plans to create more than 1,000 Miami jobs with new food ‘empire’
A major Miami developer is hoping to launch the future of American food from Coconut Grove — creating as many as 1,000 jobs in the process.
Sam Nazarian, whose sbe hospitality group is responsible for the SLS Hotels and Residences and Katsuya restaurant, plans to hire hundreds of workers over the next few years to build out what he is calling a new food group “empire,” C3, from a space in the revamped CocoWalk development.
Brands being launched and managed by C3 (short for Creating Culinary Communities) include Umami Burger, Krispy Rice, Sam’s Crispy Chicken, Plant Nation and EllaMia. It also has partnerships in place with chefs including Masaharu Morimoto and Dani García.
The goal is to make these brands available to customers everywhere by building out a network of kitchens in underutilized real estate. In the process, Nazarian hopes to give property owners, like hotels and malls, a self-contained food and beverage universe that can fulfill a physical space requirement.
“We want to give the tools to property owners and restaurateurs to unlock the value of their empty or inefficient back-of-house and give them the ability to generate more revenue,” Nazarian said in an interview with the Miami Herald.
It’s based on the premise that the pandemic has altered dining preferences enough that mobile ordering has become a regular part of day-to-day life. C3 says 60% of Americans now order delivery at least once a week, and that food delivery is growing 300% faster than dining in. Meanwhile, 59% of all “millennial”-generation restaurant orders are deliveries.
Miami will serve as C3’s technological hub, powering its digital restaurant brands and a new app, CITIZENS GO, that Nazarian hopes to position as the industry’s first alternative to third-party delivery platforms. The app features a “virtual food hall” of C3 brands that allows customers to order directly from multiple restaurants via a single cart order.
“So unlike the current model of having 50 kitchens servicing 50 brands, we have one kitchen that would service 10 brands — and we own all the brands,” Nazarian said.
C3 is hoping to hire up to 100 tech and information-technology-focused employees who will manage C3’s direct-to-consumer infrastructure, including the development and execution of content for all of C3’s global properties, brands and partnerships.
“It’s everything from customer acquisition to heads of product, loyalty, engineers — and a tremendous amount of social content creation,” Nazarian said. “We’re going to be using all the channels — YouTube, Facebook, Instagram — that drive brand awareness.”
C3 has already partnered with one hotel group, Los Angeles-based Graduate, to assume daily operations of all on-premise food service across Graduate’s properties.
C3 is also working with another Miami-based group, REEF, to take over some of its kitchen mobile vessels.
“C3 has world class chefs and culinarians taking brands from existing restaurants and adapting them to the digital environment,” said Michael Beacham, REEF’s president of kitchens. “Or they’ve partnered with world-class chefs in creating an all-new brand.”
In November, French multinational hospitality group Accor took full ownership of sbe hotel brands in a $300 million cash investment.
This story was originally published May 24, 2021 at 7:00 AM.
