Sucré CEO James Vitrano on the challenges of scaling an emerging brand

Take-Away with Sam Oches

Nation's Restaurant News

Business, Entrepreneurship

2.5 • 15 Ratings

🗓️ 4 March 2025

⏱️ 53 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Happy Mardi Gras! In this episode of Take-Away with Sam Oches, Sam talks with James Vitrano, the CEO of Sucré, a French patisserie concept out of New Orleans that has eight locations across the Southeast. James and his pastry chef wife Abney Harper bought Sucré in 2023, looking to scale the luxury patisserie concept that specializes in macrons, gelato, and a range of handmade French desserts. James joined the podcast to talk about the challenges of scaling an emerging brand and particularly building brand awareness and balancing costs while simultaneously providing an incredible experience to each and every guest.

In this conversation, you’ll find out why:

A little bit of passion goes a long way in scaling a business
When building your restaurant experience, consider a sense of place
With a sense of place, your growth should be more calculated
When building an emerging chain, sometimes you’ve got to be MacGyver
You should only launch a franchise when the concept is 100% ready
Moments are the new experiences
Brand awareness is one of the biggest challenges for an emerging brand

Have feedback or ideas for Take-Away? Email Sam at [email protected].

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey there, welcome to Takeaway with Sam Ocas, a podcast from Nation's Restaurant News. I'm Sam
0:05.2	Ocas, editor-in-chief here at NRN, and this is the show where I give you an all-access pass
0:09.9	to the restaurant industry's most influential decision-makers. This week, I'm talking with
0:15.2	James Vitrano, the CEO of Sucre, a French patisserie concept out of New Orleans that has eight locations across
0:23.0	the southeast. James is a lawyer by trade, but he served as general counsel at both Einstein, Noah,
0:29.7	and Ruby Tuesday before taking on the CEO role at the Frozen Cocktail Business Fat Tuesday
0:35.9	in early 2020. Then in 2023, he and his pastry chef
0:40.9	wife, Amni Harper, bought Sukray, a luxury patisserie concept that specializes in macrons,
0:47.9	gelato, and a range of handmade French desserts. We're dropping this episode on Tuesday,
0:53.5	March 4th, which of course is
0:55.0	Fat Tuesday. We wanted to honor Marty Grau, and James did not disappoint, as this conversation
1:00.5	was an absolute riot. And James' conviction for not only his concept, but also the city of New
1:06.3	Orleans, and its impact on the culinary world are front and center. Plus, I even got to eat some macrones on air.
1:14.5	More importantly, James joined the podcast to talk about the challenges of scaling an emerging brand,
1:20.0	particularly building brand awareness and balancing costs while simultaneously providing an
1:26.0	incredible experience to each and every guest.
1:29.3	In this interview, you will learn more about why you should consider a sense of place
1:33.2	when building your restaurant experience, why you've sometimes got to be McGiver when you're
1:37.7	growing your emerging chain, and why you should only launch a franchise when the concept
1:41.9	is 100% ready.
1:44.5	Jumping now into my interview with Suehre's James Vitrano.
1:48.5	Also, don't forget to stick around after the interview as I will share my seven
	...

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