Food Network Boosts Fairhope Restaurant

Font Size By Chad Petri Reporter
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M50o93H7pQ09L8X1t49cHY01Z5j4TT91fGfr Food Network Boosts Fairhope Restaurant
Published: Fri, June 20, 2008 - 3:53 am
Last Updated: Monday, July 28, 2008 - 10:38 pm
Chad Petri
Chad Petri
Pete Blohme, AKA Panini Pete, might be beating himself up in the kitchen. He says business is up by half since his restaurant’s recent appearance on the Food Network.

“There's people driving in from Biloxi, Ocean Springs, Birmingham, Montgomery, Pensacola, Panama City, taking day trips to Fairhope because they saw the show,” says Pete.

He says the busier days are forcing him and the staff to do a better job filling orders faster. His rise to local culinary stardom began with an appearance in a local magazine. That caught the attention of a network producer. They detailed exactly how they make their dishes.

“They even told me on the second or third call I don't care how busy you are, how cool you think you are if you're using frozen patties or you're opening up mixes for this, you're not doing things from scratch that's not the kind of place we want to visit,” says Pete.

This is the first establishment Pete's run on his own. He says he's beating the odds after two and a half years in business--more than half of all new restaurants close up shop in that time frame.

“The failure rate's high because the profit margin's so low and a lot of people get into it not knowing what they're doing,” says Pete.


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