Monty Schiro has reservations.

It's not just because he's president and CEO of Food Fight group, with 10 restaurants in Madison and the surrounding area. Schiro has reservations about taking too much credit for the success of the company. He also has reservations about calling 2009 a good year for Food Fight, saying that it is mostly in comparison to 2008.

But even so, in an industry that has seen declines nationally because of the down economy, Food Fight has found economical ways to grow. The company added Carl's Cakes in Sun Prairie and the Frank Lloyd Wright Visitor Center restaurant near Spring Green to the fold while also adding catering and cafeteria business.

Schiro is a Madison native who grew up in the Greenbush neighborhood and on Monroe Street. He has a degree in art history and also studied architecture but ended up in the restaurant business instead. He worked at Ovens of Brittany for nine years and in 1990 opened what is now Monty's Blue Plate Diner on Atwood Avenue.

More restaurants followed, which led to the creation of Food Fight. Approximately 500 people are on the Food Fight payroll. The restaurants are individually run and managed, with managers acquiring ownership in their restaurants through stock purchases. Food Fight takes care of the business end, including marketing, promotion, purchasing, payroll and human resources.

Q: What kind of year has it been for Food Fight?

A: Operationally, it's been a very good year. We saw a lot of this coming, like a lot of people did because last quarter of '08 was pretty painful. We budgeted accordingly. We looked at costs and we looked at everything. Our goal was to keep everybody employed, keep as many jobs as possible. In some cases we added (staff) cleaning and got rid of the cleaning service. We did things like that to keep people employed, in-house things we hadn't done before.

Q: How have the higher prices of food impacted your business?

A: We're part of a big buying group called Buy Right; there's 70-plus restaurants in that group. It allows us to buy food at a cheaper price, silverware, equipment, everything from grease removal to linens. That helped us weather this storm a little bit.

Commodities came down and with Buy Right, we are on a contract price to be a certain percentage above cost, so when their prices came down, our costs automatically went down.

Q: If commodities triple, you can't just triple the cost of your menu items.

A: Absolutely. And we didn't raise our menu prices. We tried real hard and did not to raise prices anywhere all year. In fact, we reduced prices at Delmonico's. And we started lunch there.

Q: Have your customer numbers been good across the board?

A: Stable. We tried to find things that would be low out-of-pocket money yet would build the business. Lunch at Delmonico's has been a hit. You can have lunch at Delmonico's for 10 bucks, and it's a great value.

At Bluephies, Bill and Mel (Horzuesky, the chef and manager) did more catering, and started a cafeteria in the Verex office. That was a way to grow their business without adding more brick and mortar.

Then Brad Bauer at Hubbard Avenue Diner made a deal with Taliesin. We'd been doing APT (American Players Theatre near Spring Green) for years, and then we opened up that and we might offer dinner there next year.

And we bought Carl's Cakes. I've known Carl for 30 years and we talked about partnering over the years, and then last year he was talking about retiring and we were talking about ways to segue his business. So we bought the company and he came out to Market Street Diner in Sun Prairie. So he gets to make the cakes and doesn't have to worry about the business side of things and can train someone to take his place.

So if customer numbers are down and dollars are up, those are some of the reasons. And most of those ideas were generated by people that work with us or work for us, which we love.

Q: Have the Food Fight restaurants been your idea or do people come to you?

A: I would say they've been my ideas to start. Once it gets rolling, somebody else says, "Have you thought about this?" or "Do you want to try this?" and I say, "Oh, that's good" and it becomes a collaboration, which is really the best.

Q: How do your architecture studies come into play?

A: Well, I can read a floor plan and I can see in 3-D, and I understand the process. I probably know enough to be dangerous. It does help. We've done five restaurants with (Madison architect) Ed Linville and I come forward with an idea and he tweaks it and makes it better. Or he'll come up with an idea and then I'll get excited about it.

Make no mistake, I know which one of us is the professional.

Q: What do you see for 2010?

A: In terms of the economy, I think it will stay flat, which is fine.

We're trying hard to partner with other things in the community and one of them is Second Harvest. In terms of charitable contributions, we've always stayed local. The Blue Plate does a lot with the Goodman Center, Middleton does stuff with the outreach there, Sun Prairie does things with charities there. But as a group, we wanted all of us to contribute to Second Harvest. And we'd like to do something with UW Hospital for kids.

Q: How often do you eat out?

A: I don't know why I bought a refrigerator. I eat out a lot, it's ridiculous. I mostly eat at our places because I like them. But when I go out with friends, they know I'll work if I'm in my own place so we try to go elsewhere.

Q: Are there any food trends outside of Madison that you haven't tapped into yet?

A: That's a tricky one. The slow foods, the whole foods, the local foods are all pretty much in sync with everybody now. I'm not into the high-tech food, the places that serve 24 courses for $450 on prongs and you get an oak leaf burning and you eat pumpkin seed and you go, "Oh" because it's been infused with something. And the smell of oak leaf makes you think of autumn ... I don't need that.

MONTY SCHIRO

President and CEO of Food Fight restaurant group

Business address: 2002 Atwood Ave.

Restaurants: Bluephies, Eldorado Grill, Fresco, Hubbard Avenue Diner, Johnny Delmonico's Steakhouse, Market Street Diner, Monty's Blue Plate Diner, Ocean Grill and two Tex Tubb's Taco Palace locations

Web site: www.foodfightinc.com

Education: Bachelor's degree in art history from UW-Madison

Family: Daughter Hannah, 21; son Travis, 18

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