Mimi's Upscale Family Dining
Mimi's Café dishes up unique family-style American cuisine in new markets.

Paris meets New Orleans in family style at Mimi's Café, a booming 89-unit chain that serves up American cuisine in an upscale diner-like setting. The predominantly western-based chain is pushing east and south, with 15 new locations planned for next year. The Tustin, California-based company was founded in Southern California in 1978 by Tom Simms, along with his father, Arthur J. Simms, a restaurant veteran who previously ran the MGM Grand commissary, which served meals to Hollywood legends such as Judy Garland, Mickey Rooney and Clark Gable. Arthur named the restaurant after a woman he met and fell in love with in Paris during World War II. His love of Paris and New Orleans are what inspired the concept and the French quarter/bistro décor.

“When Tom and his dad came up with the concept, they decided to design something that was more upscale than a coffee shop or a family restaurant, which is pretty much all there was back in the mid- to late 1980s,” says Dani Mayer, vice president of development for the company. “The early Mimi's started out with lace curtains and pink tablecloths and was a little more feminine than it is today. But over the last 10 years, it's really evolved and that's one of the strong points of Mimi's — the concept has continued to stay current.”

The restaurant's newest prototype, of which there are eight open, has a wine bar, as opposed to the dining counters of the older prototype. The décor package emphasizes authentic artwork and artifacts, awnings, plants, glass-covered tablecloths, comfortable wooden furniture and brick and imported tiles. The new prototype also includes a broader, more intense use of color. Antique stone floors, checkered tile walls, heavy-beamed ceilings and other interior changes have been introduced. Each restaurant has five dining areas: a casual 78-seat New Orleans-style Garden Room, a Market Café and Wine Bar with counter stools and booths, a more formal 48-seat Bistro Room, a rustic, warm 48-seat Wine Cellar room and a trellised outside patio. The typical restaurant is 6,400 square feet and seats 200.

With a broad-based menu, Mimi's Café is known for its large portions, competitive prices and attention to customer service. The breakfast menu is structured around Grillades, cereals and French and New Orleans egg dishes and omelets. Lunch features a wide selection of salads, sandwiches and hamburgers. Pastas, chicken, beef and fish comprise the dinner menu. Mimi's is also known for freshly baked goods, Chinese Chicken Salad, fresh roasted turkey, pot roast, home-style soups, healthy foods, specialty coffee drinks and New Orleans Bread Pudding with Whiskey Sauce.

Averaging more than 1,000 customers per day, Mimi's target customer is 35 to 65 years of age with a median household income of $45,000 to $65,000. Customers are 60 percent female, mainly shoppers.

“We are attracting the same customer that a shopping center wants to attract,” says Mayer. “We have three meals a day, which means we bring customers in during times of the day when other restaurants don't. And we are unique in that we choose more regional sites, which means we will build fewer restaurants in a market than say an Applebee's or Chili's might, so it will be a more unique experience.”

The secret to Mimi's success may be its selection of good people and good markets. Mimi's general site requirements include a population of 100,000 in a 3-mile radius, a daytime population of 20,000 employees (minimum) within 3 miles and a minimum traffic count of 35,000 cars per day (on main street). Ideal sites have a strong regional retail draw, whether it's from a regional mall, power center or lifestyle center with 1 million or more square feet of retail. In addition, Mimi's looks for good office and businesses nearby to support the restaurant's weekday lunch business. Sites must also be located with visibility and direct access to and from a main street (i.e. no interior pads or pads on a secondary street). Preferred co-tenants are soft goods, home decorating/crafts, ladies apparel, bookstores, department stores, theaters and ethnic or specialty restaurants.

All of Mimi's locations are freestanding buildings, the majority of which are pads in shopping centers, regional malls, lifestyle centers and power centers. The two newest locations are in Florida — one at the Bell Tower Shops in Fort Myers and another near Altamonte Springs Mall in Altamonte Springs, Florida, just north of Orlando.

With a new president, former Outback Steakhouse franchisee Russ Bendel, and new owners (Mimi's was acquired by Bob Evans Farms last July), Mimi's Café is still on the fast track with 89 locations in 12 states (California, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas, Florida, Nebraska, Missouri and Kansas). The chain is slowly but surely branching out from its southwestern base, with continued development in Florida, and is looking at potential sites in the Midwest, the South and the Southeast. The company has plans to build 15 locations next year, continuing with expansion in all of its existing markets and concentrating new development in the Southeast, Washington, D.C. and Chicago.

— Susan H. Fishman