Shogun Plans Expansion

John Pak, the owner of Shogun Steak House of Japan in Fayetteville’s Spring Creek Centre, is eyeing space next door to his restaurant for expansion. But he may not be the only one vying for the spot.

Home Interior Warehouse plans to move by June 1 to from one spot to another in Spring Creek Center, says Francis Atkinsson, the store’s manager. The home-design store will go from a 1,700-SF space to about 5,000 SF after the move, she says.

Shogun has 3,600 SF of space now, Pak says. But with the busy weekend business, Pak says, he needs the extra space.

But Atkinsson says the real estate agency has been showing the property to other prospective tenants. The building is owned by Developers Diversified, which owns shopping centers across the United States. Spring Creek Centre is near the Northwest Arkansas Mall, Fayetteville’s hottest retail zone. Atkinsson says Home Interior Warehouse planned to move the the site previously occupied by Corky’s Ribs & BBQ, but that location was rented by Gateway for use as a computer store. Corky’s, in the meantime, moved to Fayetteville’s Dickson Street.

If Pak can’t get the extra space, he says, he may move his restaurant to a location in the CMN Business Park near the Wal-Mart Supercenter on Mall Avenue. The land is still being cleared for Phase II of CMN and will be adjacent to Spring Creek Center. Phase I of CMN is along Millsap Road. But Pak says Perfect Partners, a home-decor store on the other side of Shogun, has extra space that it may make available to the restaurant.

Pak, who was a school teacher in Korea, moved to Fayetteville in 1989 (after a six-month stint there in 1982) and opened the restaurant. Although there is a chain of Shogun restaurants on the East Coast, Pak says his is independently owned and not a franchise.

Pak also owns a Japanese restaurant called Ah-So in Mesa, Ariz., and plans to open a Shogun soon in Branson, Mo. The word Shogun is Japanese for “military general,” he says.