Exploring the Safest Food Packaging Options. Consumer Trends. Red Robin Evolves its Digital Experience. Food Safety. Chef Profiles. Chef Nyesha Arrington's Los Angeles. Menu Innovations. Huddle House to Develop 10th Illinois Location. Casual Dining. Ramen Nagi Opens in Los Angeles. The initial Logan's Roadhouse was established in Lexington, Kentucky, in in a building that had previously housed a Western Sizzlin' steakhouse. Striving for a unique casual dining experience that combined reasonably priced, quality food with a fun atmosphere, Wachtel and McWhorter came up with the concept for Logan's--a restaurant that would have the look and feel of the American roadhouses of the s and s.
The duo fleshed out their concept with atmospheric touches, such as hand-painted murals, wooden floors, a Wurlitzer jukebox playing foreground music, and a menu of American steakhouse staples. Soon, Logan's atmosphere, in combination with its down-to-earth fare and affordable prices, proved to be a formula for success.
With reaffirmed confidence in the Logan's concept, Wachtel and McWhorter began planning for expansion. One of their first moves was to contact Edwin Ted Moats, Jr. A graduate of Vanderbilt University, Moats had begun his career as staff assistant to the president of the First American National Bank in Nashville. Working in business development and commercial lending gave him the opportunity to analyze what worked and what did not for various businesses.
One of his most successful accounts was Shoney's--a large, Nashville-headquartered restaurant chain founded by Ray Danner and formerly headed by Wachtel. While handling the Shoney's account, Moats developed a strong relationship with Danner, who was to serve as his mentor throughout the coming two decades. Moats entered the restaurant business himself in when he took over a Captain D's seafood restaurant, rapidly turning it into one of the chain's most profitable units.
Together with a partner, Moats successfully took on several more Captain D's, and by the time Wachtel and McWhorter approached him, had proven himself to be both a shrewd financial analyst and a skillful restaurant operator.
Moats began serving as a consultant to Logan's in January of His first move was to visit the restaurant quietly and inconspicuously, as a regular patron. Noting that some customers were waiting as long as two hours for a table, Moats suggested enlarging the kitchen to handle more volume and adding more seating to cut down on the wait. He also proposed beefing up the menu to include more choices. Within months of implementing the recommendations, Logan's weekly sales had increased by 60 percent--and Moats had agreed to become the company's president.
Shortly thereafter, Wachtel and McWhorter relinquished active leadership roles, leaving Moats to pilot the fledgling company on his own. For the first two years of Moats's leadership, Logan's grew at a conservative pace. Aware that a too rapid expansion could sabotage an otherwise successful concept, Moats opened only one additional restaurant in in the Hickory Hollow area of Nashville, Tennessee.
The following year was likewise slow-paced; at the end of , there were only three Logan's in operation. In the next two years, however, the company picked up steam; by the end of , there were nine Logan's Roadhouses located in Kentucky and Tennessee. In , the brand opened its th location, and in , it launched its loyalty club, the Nut-E Club. Logan's Roadhouse has experienced a long line of owners. The new owners? Kelso, another private equity firm. Kelso, however, at the time, did not have the same track record with restaurants that BRS boasted, focusing primarily on retail and consumer investments.
Its only experience managing a restaurant chain was when it owned a stake in IHOP in the s. While, over the next few years, Logan's managed to grow to a chain of about restaurants, with locations in 50 states, and nearly 20, employees via the Tennessean , Logan's Roadhouse still hit financial troubles within six years. The money problems started in , with Kelso at the helm via the Tennessean. In August, Logan's Roadhouse filed for bankruptcy and closed nearly 20 "underperforming" restaurants.
According to a statement, the closures were "part of the overall efforts to improve the company's financial performance" and a "plan [was] in place to assist employees in closing restaurants, reassigning employees to other Logan's restaurants, and providing them with outplacement services and assistance with applying for jobs.
The largest debt was to National Retail Properties, to whom Logan's Roadhouse owed more than half a million dollars. As you could possibly expect by this point, Kelso didn't hold on to Logan's Roadhouse for very long, either, especially once the finances went south.
At the time of the sale, the Logan's brand had been reduced from restaurants in 50 states to restaurants in 22 states. With a brand-new CEO and another near restaurants already under its belt, CraftWorks was seemingly well-equipped to take over Logan's, though it was not disclosed exactly how much CraftWorks paid Kelso for the brand.
Unfortunately, things would not remain so optimistic. While CraftWorks was optimistic about its future with Logan's Roadhouse, things didn't turn out as planned, especially when the Covid pandemic hit. In early March of , the CraftWorks Holdings CEO had said that the fiscal quarter was "off to a solid start," but then, by late March, things had turned sour. Cassandra Stephenson Nashville Tennessean. Show Caption. Hide Caption. Coronavirus: What to expect in a recession, depression.
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