Food Industry – Local Restaurants Thriving

Despite an influx of new chain restaurants, some locally owned restaurants are thriving in Fayetteville.

rFor the first six months of 2000, sales were up 23.6 percent to $973,200 at Powerhouse Seafood when compared to the first six months of 1999.

rLayne Caudle and Trish Heckathorn bought the upscale restaurant in December 1999 from Bill Underwood, the Fayetteville jeweler, but the couple had actually been operating the business since June 1999.

rPowerhouse Seafood is known for its Thursday and Sunday night “Party on the Patio,” which features a band performing behind the restaurant. Party on the Patio is held only during the warmer months of the year.

rCaudle said he has changed the menu and is doing about 10 times the advertising as the previous owner (although that still amounts to only about $1,000 per month).

r”The economy has been great, and restaurants flourish in a great economy,” he said.

rAt Jose Inc., which traditionally ranks either No. 1 or No. 2 on our list, sales were up 14.7 percent to $1.7 million. That comes after a 10.3 percent increase in sales for the first half of 1999 when compared to the first half of 1998.

rJose Inc. includes Jose’s Mexican Restaurant and Bordino’s, an upscale Italian restaurant located in the same Dickson Street building and both owned by Joe Fennel. The business pays city hotel-motel-restaurant taxes as one entity, and Fennel wouldn’t break down the sales figures for Bordino’s and Jose’s Mexican Restaurant.

rThe tax, which is used for this ranking, includes sales of alcohol as well as food. Both Powerhouse Seafood and Jose’s have a thriving nightclub reputation in addition to being restaurants.

rRed Lobster remained No. 1 on our list with $1.7 million in sales. (Actually, $29,982 more than Jose’s, but we rounded up. See the chart for specific numbers.)

rRed Lobster, a subsidiary of Darden Restaurants Inc. of Orlando, Fla., had a 15.7 percent increase in sales for this period (compared with $1.46 million in the first half of 1999). That’s on top of a 6.3 percent increase for the first half of 1999 over 1998.

rSales at Fayetteville’s top 10 restaurants totaled $11.5 million for the first six months of 2000. That’s up from $11.0 million for the same period in 1999 and $10.6 million for the first half of 1998.

rChili’s, a chain restaurant owned by Sydran Food Services, also posted a healthy gain — 15.4 percent to $1.3 million in sales. That’s after a decline in sales of 8.8 percent in the first half of 1999.

rThis was the first year for Powerhouse Seafood to make our Top 10. Another newcomer to the list was Chic-Fil-A in Northwest Village, across College Avenue from the Northwest Arkansas Mall.

rChic-Fil-A, a fast-food chain restaurant, had $770,993 in sales, a 13.3 percent increase over the first half of 1999.

rRio Bravo Cantina, a Tex-Mex restaurant chain, dropped from No. 8 to completely off our list. Rio Bravo was No. 3 in the first half of 1999. The restaurant opened in late 1997 with the best first-month’s sales figures in Fayetteville restaurant history. Rio Bravo had sales of $709,981 for the first half of 2000, a 23 percent drop from $926,714 in the first six months of 1999.

rApplebee’s International Inc. sold the 65-unit Rio Bravo chain in 1999 to Chevy’s Inc. of California. According to Fayetteville tax records, the local restaurant officially had new ownership as of May 30, 2000. Bookkeeping changes may have had something to do with the lower numbers for Rio Bravo in 2000. Bookeeping changes may have had something to do with the lower numbers for Rio Bravo in 2000.

rThe restaurant reported only $33,919 in sales for June, which is about 25 percent of the amount brought in the month before.