A WOW Of A Concept
Casual wing concept takes flight in traditional and non-traditional locales.
Susan Fishman

The first WOW Cafe and Wingery opened in Covington, Louisiana, in 2001.

Several years ago, three brothers from Louisiana who grew up in the family music store business embarked on the dream of one. Paul Ballard dreamed of a casual restaurant/bar/grill concept that would appeal to both families and young professionals. He and brothers Scott and Steven drew on their previous franchise experience (Paul owned PJ’s Coffee Shops, and Scott and Steven were the largest area developers for Smoothie King) and after extensive research and development, opened their first WOW Café and Wingery in Covington, Louisiana, in 2001.

The first store was a quick-casual concept and very successful, according to Paul. “So we set out a plan to develop the New Orleans market initially,” he says. “As we started growing, we found that with our menu offerings, we are more suited to the restaurant model. So we have table service in a lot of our stores as well as a condensed menu for quick service.”

WOW Café & Wingery is a casual, family restaurant featuring wraps, oversized salads, Angus burgers on Texas toast, quesadillas, fajitas, wings, tenders and shrimp, as well as more than 20 proprietary sauces and dressings. Award-winning chef George Rhode, IV created the sauces to capture the flavors found in restaurants of Greater New Orleans. The flavors range from Italian garlic and herb to traditional Buffalo to Kansas City sweet barbecue.

The company currently has more than 30 locations. Growth is taking place in both traditional and non-traditional settings, with several airport and university locations. WOW Café & Wingery has recently opened or has signed leases in Minnesota at St. Cloud University; St. Louis at Webster University; Athens, Georgia, by the University of Georgia; Townsend, Massachusetts, by the University of Townsend; Wilmington, North Carolina; Washington, D.C., at George Washington University.; San Antonio, Texas; Louisiana at Tulane University; Eastern New Mexico University; and Corona, California. There are also several signed leases in Columbia and Biloxi, Mississippi; Mobile, Alabama; and Louisiana.

Over half of WOW Cafe and Wingery’s customers are female.

“We opened a quick-serve location in Townsend,” notes Scott. “And we’ve condensed the menu a bit at some of our university locations and added some meal deals for quicker service.”

The company has also signed a 100-store deal with Sodexho, one of the big university food operators. The stores are both in the quick-serve model and the full-scale restaurant model.

WOW Café & Wingery stores range from a 1,380-square-foot café/heavy take-out model to a 5,000-square-foot restaurant. Although the company now prefers the 3,200 to 3,500-square-foot restaurant model, which will seat about 120 to 150 people, the take-out concept is still a good portion of its business.

“As we evolved, we realized there was a big need for a bar in the restaurant and with our systems in the kitchen, we weren’t maximizing the total amount of production with the amount of seats that we had,” says Steven, who runs operations for the company. “So we expanded and realized we didn’t have to add much to the kitchen to service twice the amount of people we were handling in the café model.”

With only three corporate locations, WOW Café & Wingery seeks franchisees with a certain amount of net worth and business experience (restaurant experience is preferred, but not required).

“With our training, you can learn our system pretty easily after the 3-week training period,” says Scott. “We designed the kitchen and the concept to where you don’t need a culinary chef in the kitchen — we do everything by prep and make our own sauces and ship items into the stores.”

A large preference moving forward is for owner/operators, adds Scott, but, as evidenced by the Sodexho deal, the company is not closing its door on multi-unit operators.

“If they are a multi-unit conglomerate like a corporation that has food service history, we require them to have an infrastructure in place to support the store.”

Though the company has one freestanding location, the rest of its stores are located within some kind of shopping center, whether it be in-line space or a quick-serve model within a shopping center food court area, according to Chris Pearson, vice president of real estate and construction for the company.

“Normally our model is 3,200 square feet of in-line space located at an endcap with the capability of a take-out window,” he says.

With light, current colors, stonework and blown-glass lighting, WOW Café & Wingery has a fresh, clean and vibrant feel.

“We have a couple of TVs and call it a ‘sports gallery,’” notes Paul, “but it’s not a sports bar. We set out to appeal to the entire family — 53 percent of our patrons are women.”

In fact, the WOW Café & Wingery brand is extremely relevant in today’s shopping environment, says Pearson. The concept attracts moms, dads and kids and is not specific to any one demographic like some of the other wing chains.

“Everywhere we have gone, we have been the Number 1 seller per square foot in the food court and the busiest for all of our models,” adds Paul. “We are very confident in our food offerings — we have the right mix that has made us successful, and I think that’s why the Sodexhos of the world and the malls are starting to take notice of our brand.”


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