FSR February 2023

BehindtheScenes BY BEN COLEY

RealEstateRoleModel

WALK-ON’S NEWWILDCAT DESIGN

With its newest and smallest prototype debuting this year, Walk Ons continues evolving. ONE OF THE FEW BENEFITS Walk On’s gathered fromCovid is understand ing its business model from a different perspective, says president and COO Scott Taylor. When restaurants shut down, sales immediately dropped 93 percent, with to-go and delivery being the only source of income. As dining rooms were able to open again, a handful operated at 50 percent capacity. Despite that, stores were still setting opening-week sales records. e thought crossed everyone’s mind: Maybe the concept doesn’t need

280 seats and that much stress on the kitchen. Perhaps throughput could be faster and, in response, table turns, too. “ e other part is just looking at the increased costs of everything right now from steel to lumber to utilities for an open business,” Taylor says. “Every thing’s gone up, like commodities in your food. So we needed to take some dollars out of the cost of our building.” From these discussions came the 7,000-square-foot, 200-seat Bulldog pro totype, slimmer than Generation One’s 8,200-square-foot design. Development actually began before Covid arrived, but everything Walk-On’s discovered about obtaining similar volumes with fewer seats accelerated the process. e first one debuted in Lakeland, Florida, in 2021. Several more have since opened. However, Walk-On’s found an oppor

tunity to go even smaller by asking more questions—what’s important to keep in the design and what are things you’d like to have, but maybe don’t get credit for with the customer? Taylor says it was about thinking outside the box and cre ating something that was “sufficient, looks good, represents the brand in a clean and classy way, and takes 20–30 percent out of costs.” SoWalk-On’s introduced theWildcat, a 6,000-square-foot design that removes about 400 square feet out of the kitchen and 600 square feet from the front of house, in comparison to the Bulldog. at includes fewer seats and a reduction in table sizes. e footprint of the bar is smaller as well. Instead of it being at the center of the restaurant, it shifts to the right side and seating shrinks from about 40 to 25. Walk-On’s believes that

WALK-ON’S

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FEBRUARY 2023