The high-end steak place Ruth’s Chris Steak House wants to open a downtown Little Rock location, though the international chain did not get the response it was after when it pitched the plans to city officials this week, a commercial broker representing Ruth’s Chris said Wednesday.
Todd Rice, a principal and executive vice president with the Little Rock office of Colliers International, has been working with Ruth’s Chris for more than a year to land the eatery in the capital city and made a presentation Tuesday to the Little Rock Advertising and Promotion Commission. The proposed site is on Markham Street, on an open red-brick plaza between the Doubletree Hotel and the Old State House Museum.
The property is owned by the city. Plans are for Bank of England executive Brad Canada to enter into a long-term ground lease with the city, then build the 9,000-square-foot restaurant and lease the land, building and other site improvements back to Ruth’s Chris. A fountain in front of the site would have to go.
Rice said he and his client were “disappointed but hopeful” after the meeting with the commission, which includes Mayor Mark Stodola and City Director Gene Fortson. Since the city owns the property — not the commission — no action was taken, said Gretchen Hall, president and CEO of the Little Rock Convention and Visitors Bureau.
Questions at the meeting centered on whether the restaurant was the best use of the property, whether it had to be made available to other private developers and about parking for the restaurant, she said. The restaurant would be built on top of a parking garage managed by the visitors bureau, and questions also were raised about structural work needed to hold such a sizable stand-alone building.
“We don’t feel like it was completely embraced the way we thought and hoped it would be,” Rice said Wednesday.
Stodola did not return requests for an interview.
The steakhouse was founded 50 years ago in New Orleans by Ruth Fertel, a divorced mother of two who mortgaged her home for $22,000 to buy a 60-seat restaurant called Chris Steak House. A fire forced her to move the original location and she renamed the restaurant Ruth’s Chris Steak House, according to the restaurant’s website.
The only other Ruth’s Chris in Arkansas is in Rogers, near Pinnacle Country Club and Embassy Suites of Northwest Arkansas.
“Ruth’s [Chris’] typical location is to be downtown, close to the business travel and to the hotels,” Rice said. “A large part of their recurring clientele is the weekly business traveler and the expense accounts, so they want to be as close to the hotels as they can get.”
The chain also looks in suburban areas “but at this time we’re completely focused on downtown and that location,” Rice added.
Canada, vice president of the Bank of England (Arkansas) mortgage division, also would be the landlord for the restaurant. Canada developed the mixed-use tower building directly behind the plaza where the steakhouse would go, Rice said.
The Little Rock Ruth’s Chris would be a corporate location, owned and operated by the Ruth’s Chris Corp. — not a franchise.
“That’s important to note because it’s a big deal for the city of Little Rock to have a nationally recognized, high-end restaurant tenant like this decide to come and place a corporate store in this market,” Rice said. The company also has international locations.
Hall, head of the visitors bureau, said all at the meeting agreed that the plaza needs improving,
“At the end of the day, it was left with ‘It is very exciting that Ruth’s Chris has approved Little Rock as a market, and we’d love to have that brand in our market somewhere,” Hall said.
Ruth’s Chris has made its desires known, and it’s now up to the city to take it further, Rice said.
“We’ve presented the proposal to [the city], we’ve certainly given evidence of our interest and capabilities. We want to move it forward if we can, but at this point it’s up to the city.”