Walker to Build New Noodles

Kirby Walker plans to build a 7,500-SF restaurant on a 7.5-acre lot in Fayetteville’s CMN Business Park to serve as a new Noodles Italian Kitchen restaurant.

“It’s going to look and feel a lot like this place,” Walker said of the Noodles he opened five-and-a-half years ago at 3155 N. College Ave. in Fayetteville. “We’re just going to relocate. We’re going to take the sign off the wall and move it out there.”

Walker said he hoped Noodles would be closed for only a week for the move. Both buildings are about the same size, but Walker has been leasing space from Tracy Hoskins at his current location. He plans to buy the land at CMN from sisters Marjorie Brooks, Nancy Rubeck and Charlotte Steele, but the property sale has yet to close. Walker said he has 1.6 acres of usable land at the new site, which is behind the Old Navy retail store. The rest of the acreage runs along a creek on the south side of his property.

Walker said he will have 225 seats inside his new restaurant with an additional 30 to 40 covered seats outside and 40 to 50 uncovered. He has 190 seats at Noodles now.

“The new store will have a focus on a wine bar,” Walker said, “and we’ll have an outside covered area that will be a wine garden.”

Walker said construction could begin by early October and be completed in April or May.

Walker will be moving Noodles to one of the area’s busiest restaurant zones. His new restaurant will be about a quarter-mile down Mall Avenue from one of his primary competitors, Olive Garden, which led the city’s restaurants in gross sales last year with $4.1 million.

“If we can get out there and level the playing field,” Walker said, “I think the locals can compete with the chains out there.”

Walker opened a smaller restaurant, Bizys Burger Paradise, in 2002 in Fayetteville’s Crossroads Shopping Center. Noodles and Bizys together brought in $2.2 million in sales last year, according to city tax records.

Walker has a long history as a Fayetteville restaurant owner. He previously owned Hoffbrau Steaks (beginning in 1984) and Kirby’s Grill and Bakery.