Garlic, Music, Atmosphere Highlights of Ciao Mambo
Bright colors and large pieces of art are part of the décor at the new Ciao Mambo restaurant at 541 S. Higgins in Missoula.
BILL SCHWANKE/Missoula.com
By BILL SCHWANKE of Missoula.com
Brett Evje is a graduate of the University of Montana and was extremely excited when the opportunity came to return to Missoula as owner of its newest restaurant.
Evje owns the first franchise of Ciao Mambo, an Italian restaurant with its roots in Whitefish. The Missoula franchise opened for business June 27 at the corner of Higgins Avenue and Fourth Street.
Evje grew up in Polson, graduating from high school there before attending UM.
Following college Evje spent nearly 10 years in the stone masonry business in Livingston. While he had never owned or managed a restaurant before, he had worked in some and was eager to get back into the business.
“I kinda fell into meeting the right people at the right time,” Evje recalled, “and everything worked out from there.”
The company overseeing the Ciao Mambo franchises, along with recently purchased CM Brands, MacKenzie River Pizza Co. and two other Whitefish Restaurants, is the Glacier Restaurant Group LLC.
Evje said Missoula was a logical choice for the first Ciao Mambo franchise because “we had a clientele that translates from Whitefish down to Missoula through the ski hill, through golf, through everything.”
A lot of Missoulians already knew about the Whitefish Ciao Mambo. Couple that with Evje’s desire to return to Missoula and the city’s relative proximity to Whitefish and it was a go.
As for the Missoula location, the owners looked around at “a ton of places and none of them felt just right to us,” Evje said.
“We wanted to be downtown,” Evje added, “absolutely … no pad locations out on Reserve or any of that. That’s what drew us to this building.”
What they were looking for was something that would fit the restaurant’s concept of family dining but also suited to a nice evening for two.
“The way that we do the music, the way that the whole scene is precipitates either one of those,” Evje said.
The food being served is described as immigrant-style Italian, the type of food the first Italian immigrants to the United States were cooking. That means Italian staples like spaghetti and meatballs, gnocchis and Bolognese.
Ciao Mambo also features hand-tossed pizzas, pesto dishes, seafood and a variety of desserts. There are no nightly specials.
“The first thing you’re gonna notice when you come in is the garlic,” Evje said. “You’re gonna smell garlic right off the bat, which is wonderful.”
Ciao Mambo will feature background music from artists like Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Louis Prima.
“We play it a little loud, absolutely,” Evje explained. “It’s part of the theme and the fun of this restaurant is to get the energy level up and to make people have fun.”
While people will notice themselves talking a bit louder than usual at Ciao Mambo, Evje said quieter spots can be found in the building.
Evje also promised that customers would be greeted by numerous staff members.
“We almost seem overstaffed,” he noted, “but we really want to give great, great service.”
The owners have gone to great lengths to provide extra training for all who work at Ciao Mambo.
Head chef Tom Hoffman spent nearly three months in Whitefish training in every aspect of the business “from the prep to the front of the store.” Others were sent to the Whitefish restaurant to get a feel for things.
Evje said servers were trained “from the bottom up … so they know everything about the restaurant.”
Ciao Mambo owner/manager Brett Evje stands in the pizza prep area with head pizza chef Travis Shlader.
BILL SCHWANKE/Missoula.com
That’s so everyone on staff can work within the team concept Ciao Mambo’s owners are promoting.
Throw in a soft opening with selected customers along with the staff serving each other and the training was complete. The fine tuning, Evje said, will be ongoing.
“We were a little wobbly at first,” Evje said of the opening as his staff tried to get their “sea legs” under them, “and we have worked a lot of those (issues) out.”
Because the Whitefish restaurant had been open for several years owners were able to anticipate what many of the initial problems might be and head them off.
“A lot of adrenaline and little sleep,” Evje said in describing the days leading up to and including the Missoula opening.
Evje also promised that “when you get the bill at the end of the night you’re going to notice that it’s not like you’ve gone out and broke the bank.”
That, he said, is so families can go there once a month - or even more often - and afford it.
“That’s really our target,” Evje said. “A good time for a good price, and great food.”
Most of the basic needs for a restaurant were already in place in the building - a hood system, walk-in cooler and freezer and prep areas. Equipment was adapted to what already was in place and some structural changes were made to fit the plan for the restaurant.
Designing the layout of Ciao Mambo, Evje noted, was “mostly a lot of standing in this space with myself and my business partners from Whitefish and just thinking about how it would flow, and visualizing.”
Evje said the initial response from customers has been good. But he somewhat expected that because of the reputation the Whitefish Ciao Mambo already had established.
“I’ve been … looking for people that may be unhappy in certain respects because of the sea-leg aspect of this,” Evje said. “I really want people to know that we’re gonna turn out this great product forever and our service isn’t gonna change.”
Evje said the Ciao Mambo restaurants in Missoula and Whitefish will continue in their dinner-only mode and will stay under 100 in terms of seating capacity (the Missoula facility seats 95).
“If you get bigger you lose the feel of this,” Evje said, “and that’s not what we want to do. We make everything in house … and we don’t want that to change.
“If we get too big then the quality suffers (and) the product suffers,” he added.
Evje invited potential customers to go online at http://www.ciaomambo.com to get a feel for the restaurant.
“Turn your (speakers) up on your computer when you do it,” Evje suggested. “Besides that, come eat.”
To listen to the entire interview with Brett Evje, click here.
