y day, the Jerry's Subs and Pizza restaurant in Ashton, VA., looks like a fast-casual restaurant, albeit a high-style one. There's a colorful menu board, vast expanses of stainless steel, a red-and-white tiled floor, and a variety of table- and bar-height seats. A strip of purple neon races around the ceiling, but it's barely noticeable in the strong sunlight.      At night, the purple neon comes out to play. It glows against the stainless steel and smoky mirrors, creating an exciting interior that beckons to outsiders. "It looks like a Martini bar," says Dave Terzian, executive vice president, and operating partner at Gaithersburg, Md.- based Jerry's.      "It ought to make you feel thumpy," agrees designer Travis Price, referring to the vibrations of a stereo's subwoofer.      Jerry's executives intended to create neither martini bar nor thumpy feeling when they remodeled the 50-year-old concept, but they did want to create   an interior that was exciting and compelling to it's main demographic, 18-44-year-old males. "We wanted the stores to convey a serious but hip images," says Terzian. Natural Touches Preparations for the redesign began two years ago, "Because it was time," confesses Terzian. "It's our first total new look in 15 years."     In it's most recent incarnation, Jerry's interior, a melange of beiges, reds and greens, looked more like a staid company cafeteria than an exciting fast-casual restaurant concept. "It wasn't bad, but it was bland," says Terzian.     Executives and designer Price first reduced the building size to about 1,800 square feet from a high of 3,600 square feet, then reworked the kitchen to make the back of the house smaller and the front of the house bigger. As a result, the restaurants have as many seats as the old version, says Terzian.     In the dining room, they replaced the old laminate and vinyl with more natural finishes such as maple, cork, glass, ceramics and metal. They chose a color scheme of red, white and purple to (Above l.) Black-and-white photos of Washington landmarks lend a local feeling to the stores. (Above r.) Customers who perch on the popular counter seats get view of the action in Jerry's open kitchen. Patrons can check out the dining room as they customize their meals with selections from the "pepper bar".   This floor plan is designed to show the location of each key photograph. Shot numbers correspond with numbers in select photos. A Counter that gives a view of the open kitchen recalls soda fountains of years past.      More contemporary touches include the use of cork, meant as flooring material, as wainscoting. The soft brown finish balances the stainless steel in the room and is immune to kicks, bumps and other abuses, Terzian says. "It's 8 or 10 bucks a foot, which is not cheap. But it lasts forever, and its warm" he says. reflect the colors of Jerry's logo.      Terzian terms the new look "soft modern industrial," but in some ways it harks back to the early days of fast food. The floor is red and white tile. The panel behind the menu is banded stainless steel.      Following the fast-casual formula, seats are both bar- and table-height to create visual interest. Color-tinted black-and-white photographs of Washington scenes, snapped by local photographer Ken Wyner, insure customers that Jerry's is indeed a local business.      The first remodeled unit opened in Aspen Hill, MD., in August 2002. Since then, the prototype has undergone a few cosmetic changes.      In the original design, the purple neon and the glass panels near the entry way were encased by perforated stainless-steel valances. "It was a nice look, like an exquisite light fixture," Price says. That nice look, however, cost a few thousand dollars per store, so the valances were banished.      Neon was installed above the menu board to draw attention to that area. Bar stops were added to the stainless steel behind the board to add textual interest. Because the stark white of the red-and-white floor tiles proved a dirt magnet, the white was changed to creamy gray.      Jerry's executives also found a commercial supplier for the copper cloth light fixtures that hang from the ceiling. The shades look more uniform than their handmade predecessors.      Even without the slight changes, the redesign did and is doing wonders for sales, Terzian says. A remodeled restaurant needs a 5 percent bump in sales to cover the cost of the redesign, which runs between $65,000 and $90,000 for a remodel and about $300,00 for a new store, real estate not included.      To date, sales at a remodeled store in Lanham, Md., have jumped by 50 percent during evening hours, thanks to that martini bar look, which sells more pizza, Terzian explains. Other remodeled restaurants have seen sales increases of 15 and 20 percent. "It varies, but it's all very positive," he says.      The redesign is even attracting new franchisees to the system, among them Patricia Carr and Christopher Markwood, who own the Ashburn, Va., location. "We really like the look," Carr says.