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Photo by Erin Nelson Sweeney.
Zeel Zaveri brings an order of chicken fingers and fries to McKenely Virgin and her husband, Nathan, as they dine with their 10-month-old at Super Chix in Hoover’s Stadium Trace Village on June 12.
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Photo by Erin Nelson Sweeney.
Restaurant partners, Jorge Cortes, left, and Zeel Zaveri, stand alongside Super Chix store managers, Michael Douglas and Andres Reyes outside the restaurant in Hoover’s Stadium Trace Village on June 12. Super Chix is part of the Power House Brands Hospitality Group and Zaveri, a partner with Super Chix, trains and coaches managers to become restaurant partners.
For the past three years, a familiar crowd has gathered at Super Chix at Stadium Trace Village on Wednesday nights for trivia.
“It’s a big hit; people love it,” said Zeel Zaveri, the restaurant’s owner-operator. “I see the same people coming in every Wednesday, which is always good to see. So now it’s more like family.”
Zaveri said he believes the tight-knit Hoover community is the reason the area has been such a great place for his business to thrive. He believes that about the other nine restaurants in Hoover that are owned and operated by Power Brands Hospitality Group, too.
“Hoover has supported me and all our other brands so much, so we can’t thank Hoover enough,” he said.
The primary partners of the Power Brand Hospitality Group in the Hoover area are Zaveri, Arnold Soni and his brother, Neal Soni. Arnold Soni said he agrees that Hoover is the perfect place to start new restaurants.
Soni moved to Hoover from India in 1980 with his parents, and his first jobs were at McDonald’s in the Riverchase Galleria and at Jim ‘N Nick’s. In 2020, he became the owner-operator of the Trace Crossings Taco Mama location.
Soni said Hoover has “been a great fit” for him “because I’ve been in the market here and know the market.”
He said he and the others at Power Brands “just really love Hoover.”
The group has a total of 17 brands, ranging from Biscuit Belly, a comfort-food biscuit-sandwich restaurant, to Frutta Bowls, which offers healthy bowls and smoothies, and Soni said many of those brands are represented in Hoover.
All total, Power Brands has about 70 restaurants in Birmingham-Hoover area, Huntsville, Charlotte and Atlanta, with more on the way.
Soni said the Power Brands model works because it provides the backing for local residents to become part owners of a restaurant. Often a restaurant’s owner-operator may put up some money, but Power Brands works out much of the funding and helps with construction. Then the local owner-operator has a vested percentage in the business.
Soni said the owner-operator model works because the restaurants have a local owner who is invested in the restaurant’s success, but they also have the support of the larger group, which helps with details like securing good prices for supplies.
“Some are younger and don’t have the financial capability that some of us older people do, but somebody who is vested is always going to take care of their business better than a manager or people that they hire,” he said. That’s what we try to display and do with all our brands — someone who is vested and always in the building.”
Power Brands promotes from within their system if someone is interested and qualified, Soni said.
That’s part of Zaveri’s larger role with Power Brands — to coach new owner-operators.
Zaveri moved to Hoover in 2019 to open the area’s first Super Chix on Jan. 1, 2020, after a Power Brands partner got introduced to their location in Dallas and worked to bring it to Alabama.
“When we started Super Chix in Hoover, we were location number four,” Zaveri said. “Right now they have about 35, so they are growing in leaps and bounds.”
Another one of those 35 is the new Super Chix on U.S. 280. One of the partners there, Perla Chavez, is a Hoover High School graduate and was Zaveri’s first hire at the Trace Crossings location.
“Coaching, training — that’s my strength, and I love helping others who are interested in business and are ready to do whatever it takes,” Zaveri said. “I love spotting talent and grooming them and making them ready.”
He’s also helping coach Majd Lutfi, who will be the operating partner of the new Five Guys opening up next to Super Chix in Stadium Trace Village in the next couple of months.
Power Brands will also be opening Grimaldi’s, a coal-brick-oven pizzeria, around the same time at Stadium Trace Village.
There are no plans for any openings past that, but Zaveri said Power Brands is “always looking for more” and wanting to grow.
They recently acquired the Saw’s BBQ location in Riverchase and also opened Phil Sandoval’s Mexican Restaurante in The Village at Brock’s Gap.
David Cohen, founder of the Hoover Restaurant Alliance, said Power Brands Hospitality Group is unique because of what they accomplish.
“They’re all independent names and independent restaurants, but there’s a camaraderie, a uniformity, a system so that they offer each other support,” said Cohen, who owns The Whole Scoop ice cream shop in The Village at Brock’s Gap. “That’s what makes them stronger. They use all their expertise and their builders and support structures to open up all these wonderful restaurants in Hoover, but there’s always a private owner on site.”
For instance, Biscuit Belly at Trace Crossings is a part of Power Brands, but when you walk in on any given day, you see Andrew and Rachel Adams, the owner-operators.
“That’s what’s going to continue to make them successful is you see an owner in the building all of the time,” Cohen said.
He said Hoover is special, and there’s “something special going on here — it’s Southern hospitality, but it’s Hoover style.”
Power Brands Hospitality Group is part of that, he said. “In their restaurants, you get treated a little differently.” It’s part of what makes Hoover great, he said.
“We are a growing, vibrant community,” Cohen said. “We’re all in it together, and good stuff is happening.”
For more information about Power Brands Hospitality Group, visit powerbrandshospitality.com.
Power Brands Hospitality Group Restaurants in Hoover
- Biscuit Belly, 1031 Brock’s Gap Parkway, Suite 157
- Cookie Fix, 1021 Brock’s Gap Parkway, Suite 109
- MELT, 5219 Peridot Place, Suite 3
- Nothing Bundt Cakes, 3780 Riverchase Village, Suite 600
- Phil Sandova’'s Mexican Restaurante, 1031 Brock’s Gap Parkway, Suite 165
- Saw’s BBQ, 3780 Riverchase Village, Suite 100
- Super Chix, 1024 Marble Terrace, Suite 102
- Taco Mama, 5220 Peridot Place, Suite 100
- Five Guys, 1028 Marble Terrace, Suite 100 (coming this summer)
- Grimaldi's Pizzeria, 5225 Peridot Place, Suite 121 (coming this summer)
