Newport Rib Company has the kind of brand power and natural evolution that many businesses strive to achieve. Founded 35 years ago, Fran Ursini opened Newport Rib Company as a family owned and operated BBQ restaurant. Many of the things Ursini started decades ago remain the same today thanks to the care and commitment of his three children, John and Laura, who run Newport Rib Company, and Dave, who runs their second location, Naples Rib Company.
“Our basic things have stayed the same. Our baby back ribs, we cook them the same way as we always have, we buy from mostly the same meat purveyors as we had in the past, so that is really consistent. We really are very careful to keep that consistency because that is why we know we have been around for 35 years,” said Laura Ursini Marroquin.
As anyone in the food industry knows, kitchens can be a revolving door of employees—but not at Newport and Naples Rib Company.
“Another reason why it’s so consistent is we have had the same chefs at both locations for over 20 years. Actually, Naples Rib Company has had theirs from the beginning and Newport Rib Company, he’s celebrating 27 years with us,” said Marroquin.
The loyalty of their chefs speaks volumes and that translates to their customers, too.
“Our largest event pretty much year after year, we feed 3,000 people within about an hour at the [University of California, Irvine] all-staff picnic. That’s an ongoing event that we’ve been doing for about nine years,” said Marroquin.
In order to handle such large orders, they’ve utilized Cambro insulated transport units since the inception of their catering operation.
“We might have like four or five caterings going on actually at each restaurant in a given Saturday. Sometimes it’s like one Cambro needs to come back so that we can fill it up and send it out again. They’re used constantly,” said Marroquin.
Newport and Naples Rib Company already had a successful catering and take-out operation, and the evolution of third-party delivery apps has only fueled the fire.
“Fifty-percent of the food at Newport and Naples Rib Company is eaten off-premise, so that’s either catering or take-out. We do a lot now with delivery partners. We’ve been doing take-out forever, but now with all the delivery services it’s where we’ll have huge orders going on during the day, which is just really great for business that we’re able to do that. Those Cambros, they are the golden ticket to making that happen with our catering,” said Marroquin.
In some cases, customers with large orders are able to check-out a Cambro to use for their event. Each location has acquired a variety of Cambro insulated transport units as their catering needs have increased.
“The Cambro product is heavy duty, it’s durable, it keeps our food at proper temperature for hours. We might take something off the grill at 7 in the morning and serve it at 12 in the afternoon and we’re not worried about safety with regards to the integrity of the food. We have a lot of confidence and it helps us make sure that we can do our job properly,” said Marroquin.
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