Dinner-house group is whistlin' 'Dixie' across the Sunbelt

Nation's Restaurant News, March 8, 1993 by Jack Hayes

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. -- Dixie Restaurants Inc., the Southern-themed family dinner-house group that owns and operates 10 Dixie Cafes and Delta Cafes in Little Rock, Ark., Memphis, Tenn., and Tulsa, Okla., is maintaining a low-key posture in its gradual expansion across the heart of the Sunbelt.

The company is preparing to debut its third Delta Cafe in Tulsa in mid-April -- leaving four Dixie Cafes each in Little Rock and Memphis -- and plans to open two to three restaurants annually during the next few years.

Moreover, the quietly successful Dixie group is not seeking franchisees or operating partners in its bid to grow within existing cities and, eventually, to take on new markets in the Southeast.

"We're a closely held company," said Dixie Restaurants Inc. president Allan Roberts. "We're not looking for investors."

The Dixie and Delta concepts are marrying value-prices regional menus with neighborhood dinner-house service and ambience to produce a day-long check average of $6.50, according to vice president Gordon Gondek.

Operating with 140 to 200 seats in locations ranging from 4,000 to 7,000 square feet, the concepts are generating a minimum 200 covers a day.

Roberts is a onetime franchising director for 14-unit Andy's Restaurants Inc., based in Little Rock. Gondek is a former vice president with the same quick-service sandwich operation.

Seeking their fortunes in the full-service segment, Roberts and Gondek left Andy's more than 10 years ago to become licensees of Black-Eyed Pea, a Southern dinner-house concept developed by Dallas-based Prufrock Restaurants Inc.

Eventually, however, the license arrangement between the two operators and Prufrock was severed. As a result, the partners converted the Black-Eyed Pea to a Dixie Cafe.

While neither Roberts nor Gondek will discuss the agreement they signed with Prufrock, the Delta Cafe name must be used instead of Dixie Cafe in areas where Prufrock operates its four-unit Dixie House concept, considered a version of Black-Eyed Pea.

Prufrock is now a division of Dallas-based Unigate Restaurants, whose parent, Unigate PLC, is based in London. Black-Eyed Pea operates about 120 restaurants.

The first two Delta Cafes opened in Tulsa last year and, according to Gondek, the reception continues to be phenomenal.

"We get comment card after comment card from customers saying they can't believe how good the food and service is," he said. "But impressing customers is our philosophy. We want people to feel like we've been waiting around all day for them to walk through the door."

The concepts serve lunch and dinner from the same menu seven days a week. Signatures include house-baked jalapeno cornbread, chicken-fried chicken, Cajun grilled catfish, a vegetable plate called "Vegetable Heaven" and marinated black-eyed pea salad.

"Plate special" entrees like chicken pot pie and pork chops are priced from $4.35 to $6.50, but a special Light Menu -- available until 4 p.m. and featuring smaller portions of the same items -- carries a maximum price of $4.95.

"We have a real strong day business," Roberts said.

Roberts would not disclose possible future locations for either concept but revealed that more restaurants will be opened in the three established markets.

"We've got a couple more on hand for 1993, and then two to three a year after that. But I'm not goint to talk about where," Roberts said.