33-Year Old is Making History as the First Black CEO of P.F. Chang's
P.F. Chang's, one of the largest and most famous restaurant chains across the globe
Nigerian Diaspora
Meet Damola Adamolekun, the CEO of P.F. Chang's China Bistro, a popular Asian casual-dining restaurant chain based in the U.S. Since 2020, he has been leading the company to ensure its continued growth and success.
Damola, who is now 33-years old, has been essential in the evolution of P.F. Chang's, one of the largest and most famous restaurant chains across the globe. Even though the brand is still strong, he believed that it is necessary to embrace change to adapt to the uncertain future.
As P.F. Chang's CEO, Damola worked on revamping the dining rooms and revising the menu items. He also initiated the inclusion of delivery and to-go orders which was viewed as unfitting to the brand before. Now the chain operates a number of small fast-casual-type of locations around the country.
True enough, the business survived even when the pandemic hit. What's more, he led the company to a 31.7% increase in sales in 2021 compared to the year before, according to Top 500 chain data from Restaurant Business sister firm, Technomic.
Adamolekun is a partner in Paulson & Co., the investment group that joined forces with TriArtisan Capital Advisors to buy P.F. Chang’s for $700 million in early 2019 from private-equity firm Centerbridge Partners.
He was also on the board of directors at the International Tower Hill Mines LLC. Adamolekun earned his bachelor's degree in Economics from Brown University and his Master of Business Administration from Harvard Business School.
How P.F. Chang’s CEO Damola Adamolekun tackled challenges inside his restaurants’ walls—and outside them, too.
Improving the in-restaurant experience and making off-premise sales a priority topped his to-do list when he took over the Asian casual-dining chain in 2020.
When Damola Adamolekun became CEO of P.F. Chang’s China Bistro in 2020, he pinpointed two challenges to deal with:
What was going on inside the Asian casual-dining chain’s restaurants.
And what was going on outside of them.
“The brand was still as strong as I remembered,” Adamolekun told the audience at Restaurant Leadership Conference, during an interview with Restaurant Business Senior Editor Joseph Guszkowski. “The quality of the food was still good.”
But the dine-in experience was lacking, Adamolekun said, and P.F. Chang’s off-premise business was next-to-nothing at just 18% of the 200-unit chain’s sales.
Adamolekun is a partner in Paulson & Co., the investment group that joined forces with TriArtisan Capital Advisors to buy P.F. Chang’s for $700 million in early 2019 from private-equity firm Centerbridge Partners.
“What was missing was the experience around the meal,” he said. “The lighting was too bright. The music was non-existent.” The décor? “Beige central,” he said.
Delivery and to-go orders were viewed as an annoyance, rather than an opportunity, he said.
So, in the year leading up to the pandemic Adamolekun and the P.F. Chang’s team worked to turn the business around.
They added pops of color to the dining room. (“Good design doesn’t have to be expensive,” he said.) And they found ways to create some head-turning, experiential menu items while also eliminating dishes that didn’t fit with the character of the brand—bye-bye Asian Mac & Cheese. (“You can’t just put ‘Asian’ in front of the name,” Adamolekun said. “It wasn’t core to what we did. We strayed a bit on the menu.”)
At P.F. Chang’s, off-premise went from an after-thought to a major money-maker.
Sales at the chain climbed 31.7% in 2021 over the year before, according to Top 500 chain data from Restaurant Business sister firm, Technomic.
The company launched its P.F. Chang’s To Go offshoot to focus on delivery in crowded urban areas where building a full-sized bistro might be cost-prohibitive.
The chain now operates about a dozen of the small-footprint, fast-casual-type locations around the country, but Adamolekun said he sees runway for up to 1,000 of them around the country.
Self-delivery is now used in 90 of the brand’s full-service locations, though he said he has no plan to move completely away from third-party delivery platforms. Restaurant teams like the self-delivery model, he said, because tips are retained in-house.
One area in which he remains steadfast in his lack of enthusiasm, though, is ghost kitchens. Don’t expect to see P.F. Chang’s opening any delivery-only locations.
“We get a lot of walk-in business,” Adamolekun said. “When you don’t have that front of house, you lose maybe half your sales of people just walking in.”
Source: blackbusiness.com