IN THE NEWS

Extreme Pita eateries around the East Valley will be first to get a new image, a new color scheme, lots of new features, a new menu and a new attitude. The new decor with giant graphics and a muted color scheme is mostly completed in local stores, said Garth Moore, the Canadian company's director of U.S. operations.

 

The new menu, which will include such spicy new items as a Thai-flavored pita and a Mexican version with pumpkin mole, is slated to debut in August, he said.

 

And starting sometime next week, the local restaurants will be taking your order online so lunch is ready when you show up to eat it, Moore said.

 

That's especially good news for a couple of longtime friends and now business partners, Lisa Eadie and Eileen Vincent, who co-own two Extreme Pita restaurants - one near Loop 101 and Raintree Drive in the Scottsdale Airpark, and one in the Scottsdale 101 shopping center, near Loop 101 and Scottsdale Road.

 

About two dozen car dealerships span the space between the women's two eateries, and the car peddlers are frequent call-ahead customers, Eadie said.

 

The businesswomen have already developed a healthy catering business by marketing to the auto dealers. They pitch the healthful, nutritious aspect of veggie-laden pitas over burgers.

 

"We promise that after they eat our lunch, the staff won't fall asleep," Eadie said.

 

Extreme Pita is also expecting to land in some school cafeterias in the fall, she said.

 

The local stores, which include four Tempe locations as well as the Scottsdale-area ones, get to pilot the pita parlor's re-branding efforts partly because Moore runs the American operation from Phoenix. But mostly it's because the chain has been a hit since it opened in Arizona in 2003, Moore said.

 

"The Southwest is probably our strongest market," he said.

 

Eadie and Vincent, former executives with JPMorgan Chase, bought the pair of eateries within the past year, so they have no year-over-year comparison, but they said they aren't worried about launching a new business in the midst of an economic downturn.

 

And Moore said Extreme Pita hasn't scaled back aggressive expansion plans despite the laggard economy.

 

Donna Hogan

East Valley Tribune

July 1, 2008

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