Oscar?s Slated for June Opening
by March 15, 2004 12:00 am 71 views
Dennis Day of Memphis is spending $500,000 to renovate the 7,100-SF building that previously housed Shorty Small’s in Rogers’ Scottsdale Center. Day plans to open his first Oscar’s Steak House there in June.
Day owns four Butcher Shop Steak Houses — two in Memphis and one each in Little Rock and Knoxville, Tenn. — as well as The Pier, a seafood restaurant in Memphis. But he said the prototype Oscar’s in Rogers will be something special because of an expanded menu and the fact that it is being designed by John Regas of Chicago. Regas is a renowned residential home designer who has designed other restaurants for Day.
Day decided to open the Oscar’s in Rogers instead of another Butcher Shop Steak House because of the building’s potential. Day bought the 7,100-SF building and two acres of land from Bill Kisor of Rogers for $2.7 million. The new restaurant will be able to seat about 280 diners. Day said he’s shooting for $6 million in revenue his first year, which would be a state sales record.
Day said he gutted the building and sold the equipment inside at a garage sale for $3,200.
“We just wanted it out of here,” he said.
Shorty Small’s closed its two Northwest Arkansas restaurants on Oct. 28, saying “facility costs were too high and negotiations to lower those costs broke off … forcing the closure of the properties.”
Shorty Small’s opened a restaurant in Fayetteville in 2001, and the Rogers location opened in 2002.
The first Butcher Shop Steak House opened in Memphis in 1978. The company opened a Little Rock restaurant in 1982.