By Pat Pape
From the outside it looks just like a Conoco gas station. Inside, there are racks of candy, boxes of beef jerky and a wall-long, drink-filled cooler. But on the far end of the store is a restaurant-style kitchen where chef/owner Franson Nwaeze and his crew whip up deep-fried Monte Cristo sandwiches sprinkled with powdered sugar, blackened pork chops stuffed with crab meat and tasty oxtail covered in spicy African red sauce.
Thanks to publicity on television’s Food Network and word-of-mouth recommendations from satisfied customers, Chef Point Café and convenience store, located in a suburb between Dallas and Fort Worth, inspires hungry diners to drive from as far away as Georgia and New Mexico to sample its popular meals. The restaurant has even played host to celebrity chefs Paula Deen and Guy Fieri.
“People think they have to drive to Dallas to a restaurant with marble floors and gold walls to get good food,” said Nwaeze. “It’s even better at a gas station.”
A Nigerian native, Nwaeze came to the United States in the early ’90s to earn an engineering degree and to become a commercial pilot. A restaurant owner promised to teach him how to cook if Nwaeze would teach him to fly. Although the restaurateur never became a pilot, Nwaeze quickly discovered that cooking was his calling. But when the fledgling chef and his wife, Paula Merrell, a former financial planner, tried to borrow money to open their own restaurant, bankers turned them down due to their lack of restaurant experience.
A friend with a track record in retailing said they could get a loan to buy a convenience store with only six months of experience in the business, so Nwaeze went to work as a c-store employee. In 2003, the couple purchased a newly constructed Conoco station in the North Texas suburb of Watauga, hired 10 employees, installed a professional kitchen and added four tables to the interior. Chef Point Café and gas station was born.
Today, the convenience-café has a staff of 51 and can seat up to 50 diners in its red and black dining area. “Red makes people buy,” Merrell said. “And it’s kind of comfortable.”
Thanks to the addition of a 28-foot catering truck, Chef Point regularly transports its famous bread pudding in hot cognac sauce and other delicacies to parties and business luncheons as far as 30 miles away.
The couple also purchased an adjoining two-acre lot and plans to expand their existing building before the end of this year. “There is a lot of opportunity for growth,” said Merrell. “I see us enlarging the eating space, expanding our catering business and maybe even holding weddings.”
They also are considering adding a “farmer’s market” section of fresh produce, installing a beverage bar to the store and offering more drink selections in the vault. Even though the store is licensed to sell beer, restaurant patrons cannot purchase and drink it on premise, a local law that Merrell doesn’t mind. “My tables would turn a whole lot slower [if patrons could consume alcohol],” she said.
Even if the expansion plans help increase sales, Chef Point Café will have a hard time beating the success of 2009. In a year when an ailing economy hampered almost every business, the Conoco-plus-café saw revenues climb 250 percent and profits jump 300 percent over 2008. Almost all of the store’s profits come from the restaurant.
Nwaeze, a personable chef, makes a good interview and is willing to whip up duck l’orange or bread pudding on live TV, a fact television producers obviously like, and Merrell admits that abundant publicity about their unique location has been a boon to business. However, she believes the restaurant’s monthly e-mail newsletter has done the best job of keeping them in front of customers.
After every meal, the waitperson gives Chef Point patrons a form to fill out that solicits feedback on the food and asks them to share their e-mail addresses. Currently, Merrell has a list of 24,000 diners, who receive monthly reports about menu updates, restaurant contests and other news. Constant Contact, a marketing solutions provider, manages the e-mail distribution and notifies Merrell and Nwaeze how many e-mail recipients opened the message and if they forwarded it to a friend.
Merrell has discovered that when the e-mail newsletter mentions special dishes and features photos of the food, it’s much more likely to be opened and forwarded than when the message talks about an upcoming contest or restaurant event.
“It’s all about the food,” she said.
Pat Pape worked in the convenience industry for more than 20 years before becoming a full-time writer. She is a NACS Magazine contributing writer.