Power of the Panini
Grilling up profits
by Chris Ryan

The time is 11 a.m. on a weekday, and your coffeehouse has just finished the final rush of the morning. As customers file out the door, their coffee breaks completed and drinks warm in their hands or bellies, your shop experiences its first lull of the day. There may be a mid- to late-afternoon rush of people looking for a pick-me-up, but business likely will be slow until then. But if you served food to entice the lunch crowd—nothing too difficult to make, but enough to pique the appetites of passers-by—you could see a steady stream of customers all day.

Enter panini. The Italian sandwiches are a popular lunch choice at coffeehouses everywhere, and compared to other food offerings, starting a panini program is a feasible and minor investment. The small footprint of a panini grill makes it a practical machine to add to an existing shop. And it could lead to crowds, rather than an empty room, in the noon hour.

ITALIAN ORIGINALS
Coffee's storied history in Italy reverberates in the mind of any coffee lover, and favorites such as European roasts and gelato have become mainstays at U.S. coffee shops. Panini is no different, with its Italian origins and frequent appearance on modern-day coffeehouse menus.

But what is it, exactly? Panini is commonly known in coffeehouses as a grilled sandwich (though panini is not always grilled, for the sake of this article, panini will refer to the grilled sandwich). Translated literally, panini means "little breads"; there is no Italian word for sandwich. Panini is actually the plural form of the word, while panino is the singular.

Though the invention of the sandwich is attributed to John Montagu, the Fourth Earl of Sandwich in 18th-century England, bread has been part of Italian diets since Roman times, so the panini's foundation was established millennia ago. Post-sandwich advent, panini evolved from its initial reputation as inexpensive peasant food to chic, hip coffeehouse fare.

The key to making traditional Italian panini is keeping things simple, using very few ingredients. The first piece of the puzzle is the bread. Though there is a common belief that there is a specific kind of "panini bread," the sandwich can consist of any variety of bread, from ciabatta to sourdough to focaccia. What is more important than the type of bread, however, is that it is cut thinly so it will grill properly while on a panini press (more on this later).

Beyond the bread, traditional Italian panini take only a few ingredients: usually a cheese, a meat, and maybe a vegetable or a spread. "It's important that the recipe is very simple and you don't use too many ingredients to complicate the flavors," says Roberto Bresciani, sales director of Nuova Simonelli, which manufactures a panini press. "Unfortunately, most of the panini that are made in the United States, people load them up with too many ingredients."

And while that fully loaded sandwich may look like it's giving customers a bigger bang for their buck, it's not the traditional way. One café owner who believes in the Italian method is Karen Lawless of Portland, Ore.'s Via Delizia. In 2001, she and her husband traveled through Italy and fell in love with the cuisine. Upon returning, they devoted their efforts to creating an experience that was as close to traveling to Italy without actually doing it; among the authentic Italian touches in Via Delizia are homemade gelato, a rock wall that mimics an outdoor seating area, and, of course, authentic Italian panini: "The idea is to have good, fresh-quality ingredients," she says. "In Italy, we just got a lot of fresh stuff, and the quality was always good."

And, of course, fresh, high-quality ingredients and small portions add up to a lunch option that's not too bad for you. "You don't need a lot of bread, you don't need a lot of meat—it's a little snack," says Bresciani. "It can be very healthy, panini." And that simplicity can be a good thing for the retailer's bottom line: Without stuffing the sandwich full of ingredients, a coffee shop can keep its cost of goods low. "You should be able to produce a good panini for under a dollar easily, and then sell it for $5," says Bresciani.

PRESSING THE ISSUE
For a shop that doesn't currently serve food and may not have a kitchen, the panini can be simple to integrate. Some municipalities do not require shops to add overhead venting or to make other costly additions if they are only using a panini grill, in which case the grill and panini ingredients would be the only expenses in adding a panini program.

The grills themselves range anywhere from about $500 to $1,500, though most can be found for less than $1,000. Manufacturers include the aforementioned Nuova Simonelli, as well as Anvil, Sirman and Silesia, and all make single- and double-grill models. The single models run on standard 110V power, while the doubles require 220V. On some of the double machines, one side of one of the presses is flat rather than ridged, allowing it to be used as a griddle to cook other items such as eggs.

However, the standard grill design has two ridged surfaces—one set horizontal to the counter, the other hinged and equipped with a handle so it can be lifted—that come together to grill each side of the sandwich and press it together. Think of the George Foreman grill, though unlike that dinky domestic cooker, most commercial grills have heavy cast-iron cooking surfaces that retain heat, allowing users to heat multiple sandwiches in a row, whereas the Foreman will cool off between uses and leave users with cold sandwiches.

One aspect of panini presses that makes them easier to integrate to an already-existing café is that, for the most part, they have a small footprint. "You want to find a panini grill that the cooking surface is pretty much equal to the dimensions of the grill," says Bresciani. "The real estate in Italy is even tighter than it is here, so you work in a lot smaller spaces."

The ease of use and quick action of panini presses also mean that cafés can serve their customers quickly. Once you know your average daily volume of panini sold, you can make the right number each morning, wrap them, and throw them on the grill for one to two minutes as they are ordered. At The Coffee Café in Lake Mary, Fla., they do just that, and during busy times, they make the most out of their double grill. "If you lay them on there right, you can get two on one side," says co-owner Barb Janssen. "So when it's really busy, we try to do that."

STRAIGHTFORWARD BUT EFFECTIVE
Anyone will tell you that a panini press is more practical than exciting, with its straightforward design and the simple-is-better attitude about the sandwiches it produces. "They are very basic technology," says Bresciani. "But what gets exciting on panini is actually the menu, the creating of the recipes." And implementing that menu, using the easy-to-integrate panini press, could be an easy lunch addition to your café.

 

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