Grand Rapids Restaurant Rumor Mill

[thebeerqueer]

27 minutes ago, demhem said:

https://www.woodtv.com/news/grand-rapids/adobe-in-out-gets-new-name-to-relocate-west-side-location/

This opens up the Adobe corner for redevelopment. 

Wow,  surprised to see this. Jeff Boorsma was resistant to soooooo many offers for so long. Curious to see what goes in at the large parcel that Adobe is vacating. 

 

[GR_Urbanist]

2 hours ago, demhem said:

https://www.woodtv.com/news/grand-rapids/adobe-in-out-gets-new-name-to-relocate-west-side-location/

This opens up the Adobe corner for redevelopment. 

The good: It frees up that location so that the existing suburban building can be replaced to be more compatible with the direction that W. Fulton is going.

The bad: It preserves another absolutely out of place suburban building that needs to be replaced because it is not compatible with where Bridge St. is going.

Edited January 9 by GR_Urbanist

[mgreven]

20 minutes ago, GR_Urbanist said:

The good: It frees up that location so that the existing suburban building can be replaced to be more compatible with the direction of W. Fulton is going.

The bad: It preserves another absolutely out of place suburban building that needs to be replaced because it is not compatible with where Bridge St. is going.

Glad to see something going in the El Sombrero (it isn't great that it's been sitting vacant) but I was hoping for something new that's urban too.  On a strange personal note, I shared in the West Side thread that my wife sold her office building across from El Sombrero on Bridge where the new Adobe is going.  The other new Adobe on Lake Michigan Drive in the article is two businesses west of where she is moving.  What are the odds?  She would have had Adobe in either office location.  Ha!

[joeDowntown]

Definitely have mixed feelings about this. I was really hoping that the Secchia family (pretty sure they own the el sombrero building) would redevelop the land into something mixed use. But it does open interesting possibilities for Fulton Street. 

Joe

[HavingAhoot]

I like the idea of outdoor eating, late night food, affordable spot to hit. I just wish its wasn't Adobe. I dont hate Adobe but its never something I have to have.

At first thought I was thinking that this was nothing big enough for a large project. Then looking at an aerial it is quite a large parcel in some prime real estate. 

[Zads]

Mangiamo reopened on Wednesday.

https://www.woodtv.com/news/grand-rapids/say-buongiorno-to-new-swankier-mangiamo/

"Mangiamo had 120 reservations on the books for its Wednesday grand reopening, but Larson said it would still take walk-ins."

[GRJohn]

22 minutes ago, Zads said:

Mangiamo reopened on Wednesday.

https://www.woodtv.com/news/grand-rapids/say-buongiorno-to-new-swankier-mangiamo/

"Mangiamo had 120 reservations on the books for its Wednesday grand reopening, but Larson said it would still take walk-ins."

I went last night.  It is very nice and slightly more upscale that it used to be.  In the basement there is a speakeasy called Mo's Cocktail Lounge which was very nice as well.  

[walker]

As far as restaurant closing news stories go, this isn't a big one.   Now that winter weather is here, I've begun to move my daily exercise walks inside.  Yesterday I walked in Rivertown mall and noticed that the long time tenant in the food court, A & W, has closed. The mall is sure looking sad with all the empty stores.   The only good thing is that there aren't a lot of shoppers getting in my way while I'm walking. 

[Jonesey]

I really hope someone has some plans for the Adobe property.  Honestly they should just demo that whole block.  I think that's what we'll see in the future, it's mainly all rentals.  Hopefully it's taller than four stories

[gvsusean]

Yes, rivertown is super sad these days. Its all those weird local shops and empty fronts…. Reminds me of crossroads mall in kzoo… 

grandville needs to do something, offer tax credits or something…. That whole area will go down fast

[Pattmost20]

Bar with rooftop seating, backyard food trucks could replace vacant lot

For those that get hit with the pay wall, the owner of 938 Wealthy St. SE is proposing building a bar with rooftop seating on the vacant lot. The back yard would be seating and either food trucks or shipping containers where food vendors could operate out of. It doesn't seem like any real concrete plans are set in place. 

 

Edited January 18 by Pattmost20

[walker]

2 hours ago, Pattmost20 said:

Bar with rooftop seating, backyard food trucks could replace vacant lot

For those that get hit with the pay wall, the owner of 938 Wealthy St. SE is proposing building a bar with rooftop seating on the vacant lot. The back yard would be seating and either food trucks or shipping containers where food vendors could operate out of. It doesn't seem like any real concrete plans are set in place. 

It's nothing I have to understand or make a decision on I suppose but I'm having trouble figuring out how this would work.   How would you get up there to the roof top seating.  I see there is an opening in the back and they could just lean a ladder up against the back wall I guess.  The backyard is land locked and apparently the idea according to the article is that the food trucks would drive through the building through the overhead doors.  But the article says the owner also intends to have a bar on the first floor.  I think that trucks driving through the first floor would be inconvenient. 

Parcel view shows there are actually two lots, although they both currently have the same owner and could easily be combined.  I imagine that at one time there was a house on the back lot and a house or other building on the front with the back lot having a strip of land for a driveway to the street.  The rendering shows the new building sitting on the old driveway strip. 

I can understand the bar owner wanting to have visibility and street access but I would also think you'd want the same for the food trucks and your shipping container businesses.  

The article says Mark McDowell, the owner of MEM Design, is going to speak with the Grand Rapids Historic Preservation Commission about the concept.  That should be interesting. 

Anyone else have any thoughts on this?  Possibly I'm just a grouchy old man.

                         

Edited January 18 by walker

[Zads]

6 hours ago, walker said:

Anyone else have any thoughts on this?  Possibly I'm just a grouchy old man.

                         

You're definitely not a grouchy old man on this. I'm in my early 30s, formerly of this neighborhood and have always wondered about what would fit best on that plot of land. This was never in my wildest dreams of what could fit there.

1. I would imagine you have to rezone this parcel (or two) because it would have to be residential right now, no?

2. The rendering doesn't leave much to be desired. Where is the bar in the building? How do you get to the top of the building?

3. The visual doesn't seem to fit the overall aesthetic of the historic neighborhood either.

4. I don't know if this is the right thing for that spot. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see more retail/bar near that corner. If you were to make this work, I'd say have a separate access drive coming in from Diamond, behind that cuts through parking lot behind that corner building.

5. I'm really interested in hearing from the HPC on this.

[Pattmost20]

To me, I like the concept in theory, but the language the guy is using sounds more like he is still in the brainstorming phase and hasn't fleshed out many details. It'll be interesting to hear what HPC has to say, and if this thing moves forward at all. 

[RiversideGR]

44 minutes ago, Pattmost20 said:

To me, I like the concept in theory, but the language the guy is using sounds more like he is still in the brainstorming phase and hasn't fleshed out many details. It'll be interesting to hear what HPC has to say, and if this thing moves forward at all. 

When I look at the rendering, I don't understand why the shipping containers to be located where they are. It looks like if they were moved to the other side, then food trucks could drive along the right side of the structure and that would eliminate weird concept of designing the building so that food trucks can drive through it.  

[Cookin_peacocks]

According to Reddit, Stan's Taco on Ottawa has closed. 

 

https://wgrd.com/stans-tacos-closes-downtown-location-only-one-left/?fbclid=IwAR390IemjSbN0TQoBFF9hNerF59HvEixg6wHI_1Dk9mrLkcDBSHfF-pTa1Y

Edited January 23 by Cookin_peacocks

[Pattmost20]

7 hours ago, Cookin_peacocks said:

According to Reddit, Stan's Taco on Ottawa has closed. 

 

https://wgrd.com/stans-tacos-closes-downtown-location-only-one-left/?fbclid=IwAR390IemjSbN0TQoBFF9hNerF59HvEixg6wHI_1Dk9mrLkcDBSHfF-pTa1Y

The amount of times Meritage has tried to launch a new chain restaurant concept is kind of crazy. Aren't we up to like 4 different concepts they've opened, expanded, and then closed down? 

[Cookin_peacocks]

13 hours ago, Pattmost20 said:

The amount of times Meritage has tried to launch a new chain restaurant concept is kind of crazy. Aren't we up to like 4 different concepts they've opened, expanded, and then closed down? 

I'm not familiar with Meritage, but apparently they are hated by many. 

[cstonesparty]

13 hours ago, Pattmost20 said:

The amount of times Meritage has tried to launch a new chain restaurant concept is kind of crazy. Aren't we up to like 4 different concepts they've opened, expanded, and then closed down? 

isn't that what they do, though?  develop restaurant concepts?  get out of them after they've hit a plateau or pour fuel on if they work?  I'm not any kind of expert in the restaurant field, but I've heard the life-cycle of a restaurant is pretty short, so this would seem to be their strategy.  

[Pattmost20]

21 minutes ago, cstonesparty said:

isn't that what they do, though?  develop restaurant concepts?  get out of them after they've hit a plateau or pour fuel on if they work?  I'm not any kind of expert in the restaurant field, but I've heard the life-cycle of a restaurant is pretty short, so this would seem to be their strategy.  

Their primary function is to own Wendy's lol. They have 380 of them. They also picked up franchise rights to Taco John's, they own 4 of them now. Morning Belle is one of their original concepts, they have 3 of them. Before that was Stan's Tacos, Twisted Rooster, Crooked Goose, Wheelhouse, and I think Fajita Republic was them too, but I could be mistaken. 

[thebeerqueer]

2 hours ago, Pattmost20 said:

Their primary function is to own Wendy's lol. They have 380 of them. They also picked up franchise rights to Taco John's, they own 4 of them now. Morning Belle is one of their original concepts, they have 3 of them. Before that was Stan's Tacos, Twisted Rooster, Crooked Goose, Wheelhouse, and I think Fajita Republic was them too, but I could be mistaken. 

I actually miss Wheelhouse. I thought that concept was a good fit for the arena district. I guess we'll see what's next. 

[MJLO]

I do appreciate Meritage because they have bigger ambitions.  Wendy's is definitely their core.  I'm sure they are continuing to grow that portion of their business.  It's a little disappointing to see them keep redeploying this strategy of creating their own chains.  I can't think of a single chain anywhere that was inorganically "flash created" that has survived.    Too many locations, too fast and a workforce can't be developed fast enough to the standards of whatever brand is trying to be established.  What ends up happening is an employee base that is under trained,  service suffers, and pretty quickly the restaurant public becomes turned off or indifferent.  The locations become forgettable pretty quick (think Bagger Dave's). 

I'm not a senior manager of a publicly traded restaurant company, but I'll armchair quarterback the hell out of it.   I would think they'd be better off with an M&A strategy of purchasing established chains, over continuing to waste capitol into these failed attempts.  They seemed to do that with Anna's House a while back.  I know they went pretty deep into a potential purchase of the brand.  Eventually they decided against it.  Morning Glory all of the sudden happened (with a not so subtle similarity to Anna's house lol).  It'll be interesting to see if they try something else at this location.  I think the foot traffic on that portion of Ottawa is still too low to really be sustainable for a restaurant that big.  Unless they are really able to drive a concept that's more of a destination in it's formatting.  

[Zads]

On 1/23/2024 at 12:39 PM, Cookin_peacocks said:

According to Reddit, Stan's Taco on Ottawa has closed. 

 

https://wgrd.com/stans-tacos-closes-downtown-location-only-one-left/?fbclid=IwAR390IemjSbN0TQoBFF9hNerF59HvEixg6wHI_1Dk9mrLkcDBSHfF-pTa1Y

Here's the piece from Crain's on the closure.

https://www.crainsgrandrapids.com/news/restaurants-1/meritage-closes-stans-tacos-downtown-grand-rapids-location/

[thebeerqueer]

I wonder how the Standale location is doing? Seems like a better  fit out there. 

[cstonesparty]

2 hours ago, thebeerqueer said:

I wonder how the Standale location is doing? Seems like a better  fit out there. 

I pass there very frequently and it appears very busy most of the time.  That and Westside Social seem to be full more often than not...  

3 hours ago, MJLO said:

I do appreciate Meritage because they have bigger ambitions.  Wendy's is definitely their core.  I'm sure they are continuing to grow that portion of their business.  It's a little disappointing to see them keep redeploying this strategy of creating their own chains.  I can't think of a single chain anywhere that was inorganically "flash created" that has survived.    Too many locations, too fast and a workforce can't be developed fast enough to the standards of whatever brand is trying to be established.  What ends up happening is an employee base that is under trained,  service suffers, and pretty quickly the restaurant public becomes turned off or indifferent.  The locations become forgettable pretty quick (think Bagger Dave's). 

I'm not a senior manager of a publicly traded restaurant company, but I'll armchair quarterback the hell out of it.   I would think they'd be better off with an M&A strategy of purchasing established chains, over continuing to waste capitol into these failed attempts.  They seemed to do that with Anna's House a while back.  I know they went pretty deep into a potential purchase of the brand.  Eventually they decided against it.  Morning Glory all of the sudden happened (with a not so subtle similarity to Anna's house lol).  It'll be interesting to see if they try something else at this location.  I think the foot traffic on that portion of Ottawa is still too low to really be sustainable for a restaurant that big.  Unless they are really able to drive a concept that's more of a destination in it's formatting.  

O'Charley's was sort of an effort at a more chain-type mid-level restaurant (licensed, not acquired) from them, but that didn't really last either...