Dining: Dining a la Cart --- Supermarkets' New Gimmick -- In-House Gourmet Eateries; The Dessert Cart in Aisle 12

• Published in: The Wall Street journal. Eastern edition
• Main Author: By Pooja Bhatia
• Format: Newspaper Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York, N.Y Dow Jones & Company Inc 03.01.2003
• Edition: Eastern edition
• Subjects: Grocery stores; Restaurants; Supermarkets
• ISSN: 0099-9660

Attention, shoppers: Don't fill up on the kielbasa samples in Aisle 14. Across the country, a handful of grocery stores are opening their own in-house restaurants -- nice ones, with waiters, white tablecloths and $50-a-head tabs. The restaurant at one Minneapolis grocery store has dry-aged prime steaks and an upmarket wine list, while the just-opened restaurant atop the Wegmans market in Rochester, N.Y., has an exposed-brick interior, state-of-the-art open kitchen and the imprint of a famous chef. One Ohio supermarket even has a luncheon "tea room" with porcelain tea service and dainty sandwiches. Some grocery-store restaurants that have been around for a while are already ramping up operations. Minnesota Grille, attached to a Byerly's in Roseville, Minn., just got a makeover, with rich burgundy carpet, cherry-wood furniture and vintage photos of stone bridges and train depots. The menu promotes grocery items, like pot roast and wild rice soup, so diners will buy more in the store. But when it comes to the wine list, you won't be able to find most of the bottles in the store aisles, says manager John Kolander, because the restaurant's higher markup might not sit well with diners: "You can't offer apples and apples at different prices." It worked on Lynn Nairne. The 49-year-old photographer popped into Marty's Fine Foods and Wines, in Dallas, to pick up some wine and salmon for dinner -- and ended up with an $80 dinner tab, not including tip. Wandering the aisles with her husband, she spied the restaurant's dessert tray -- chocolate ganache, creme brulee -- and within minutes she and her husband were listening to a jazz guitarist and dining on osso buco, steak filet and salmon. Sated, Ms. Nairne even forgot to bring home the salmon and wine: "I got completely sidetracked." (Store owner Larry Shapiro says the bistro, which he opened in 1996, is directly responsible for the store's 20% annual growth rate. "We knew it would be synergistic with our business.")