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Bennigan’s restaurant to serve hotel and Main Street clientele
Bennigan’s restaurant to serve hotel and Main Street clientele
Listen to this articleThe Three Bennies, a Syracuse-based franchiser, plans to open a Bennigan’s Irish American Grill & Tavern in the Four Points by Sheraton Rochester Riverside Hotel by mid-December.
Franchise owner Robert Swigonski has spent $1 million to renovate 10,000 square feet of space on the hotel’s first floor. The space originally was a restaurant and gift shop run by the hotel.
Bennigan’s will seat up to 300 customers. The new business will employ 150 people.
Booths will be equipped with DSL connections for guests with laptop computers. The layout includes a bar, with 16 televisions and seating for 53.
Bennigan’s is an international chain of 300 restaurants. The Plano, Texas-based Metromedia Restaurant Group owns the rights to Bennigan’s and three other chains: Steak and Ale, Ponderosa Steakhouse and Bonanza Steakhouse.
Swigonski owns two other Bennigan’s, located in Syracuse and Amherst.
“We are excited,” said Matthew Pica, Sheraton’s area vice president for operations. “We’ve been looking for ways to enhance the property. And this will definitely increase lunchtime traffic.”
Although Bennigan’s has an Irish theme, the menu is very American-ribs, hamburgers, chops and sandwiches-with prices under $20.
Bennigan’s will be open for breakfast, lunch and dinner, and supply room service for hotel guests, Pica said. In addition, the well-known theme restaurant will appeal to the convention trade, he said.
“It’ll be fun food, reasonably priced,” he said.
Bennigan’s is not the first restaurant chain to locate in the city. In the late 1980s, the Dallas-based Spaghetti Warehouse Restaurant renovated space in a vacant building on Central Avenue. The restaurant closed here in late 1995.
Rochester’s quiet nightlife could prove to be a significant problem for Bennigan’s.
“Rochester is a fickle city when it comes to restaurants,” said Warren Sackler, Rochester Institute of Technology associate professor in hospitality and service management.
“If the big boys come in with the right guns, a downtown chain could work,” he said. “If that chain were in downtown New York, the booths would be full until 2 a.m. But Rochester rolls up the streets at 11.”
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11/29/02 (C) Rochester Business Journal
