of Four Star Pizza, opens for business today.

The multi-million dollar Chit Chat Boulevard Cafe, features islands where food is displayed and prepared in the open.

"It's been quite a challenge. There were a lot of logistics to getting Chit Chat open,'' Four Star president and general manager Marico Thomas said yesterday.

The restaurant employs 70 people and covers 3,000 square feet of space in the Bermudiana Arcade, where Fashion Fabrics was located. Owners hosted a grand opening yesterday.

"It's like when you're in New York for the first time, you're always looking up,'' Mr. Thomas said of the restaurant's ceiling, part of a unique design.

"What we've tried to do is stimulate all the senses.'' Mr. Thomas said a significant part of the cost of setting up the new restaurant was done through bank financing.

The success of Four Star has shown "we can take a new concept and deliver'', he said.

The restaurant's fare includes pizza and pasta, rosti, desserts as well as specially ground coffee.

Though pizza is on the menu, the move to open a concept restaurant is a significant departure from the Thomas' pizza business.

And Chit Chat has generated some controversy with a claim that the restaurant is a franchise.

Earlier this year, Mr. Thomas said that Chit Chat was set up "totally, absolutely on our own''.

Mr. Thomas maintains the new restaurant, as well as Four Star Pizza, are not franchises.

Chit Chat's director of operations is Frank Weber who was hired out of Canada and worked in Bermuda previously, Mr. Thomas said.

On setting up Four Star, Mr. Thomas said earlier he sought the expertise of the US Four Star company and paid a fee for it.