Lincoln's on restaurant binge, but choices still slim, stats show
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By MATT OLBERDING/Lincoln Journal Star
To some, it may seem like an endless number of regional and national restaurant chains have come to Lincoln in the past few years. Applebee’s, Chili’s, Macaroni Grill, Red Robin, Noodles & Company, Granite City, Qdoba Grill, Bennigan’s, Back Yard Burgers. The list goes on and on.
“When we hit 200 thousand or 210 thousand (population), we popped up on a lot of people’s radar screens -- chain radar screens,” said Wendy Birdsall, president of the Lincoln Convention and Visitors Bureau.
But there might be another reason for the restaurant building boom: Statistics say Lincoln lags its Midwestern peers when it comes to number of restaurants in the market.
According to census data from 2003, the most recent year available, there were 477 restaurants in Lancaster County, ranging from full-service fine dining to fast food. That’s an average of 18.35 restaurants per 10,000 people.
Compared with nine other cities in the region, Lincoln had fewer restaurants per 10,000 people than every one of them except Colorado Springs.
Lincoln’s closest competition, Omaha, ranks second on the list, trailing only Sioux Falls, S.D.
Birdsall said she wasn’t aware Lincoln ranked so low.
“It surprises me that we have fewer restaurants than some of our peers,” she said.
Like many of the national chains, Lincoln-based Runza National Corp. has been adding restaurants in the city. But it hasn’t always been easy, according to a company official.
Dawn Amend, who is secretary of the corporation, said Lincoln’s planning and zoning decisions haven’t helped the situation much.
She said the city has not made a lot of land available for restaurants and also often limits locations that can have drive-throughs.
The company’s Runza restaurants must have drive-throughs to be successful, she said, though its fast-casual Braeda Fresh Express Cafes do not.
“From a restaurant side, I think Lincoln could do a better job,” said Amend, who also is president-elect of the Nebraska Restaurant Association.
Birdsall said the Chamber of Commerce and the Convention and Visitors Bureau don’t actively recruit restaurants either, though they will work with any restaurant that requests information about Lincoln.
She said the Lincoln market should be an attractive one to a lot of chains.
“Lincolnites love chain restaurants,” she said.
One of those chains that recently decided to locate in Lincoln is Noodles & Company, a Boulder, Colo-based chain that serves fresh Asian, Mediterranean and American cuisine.
Company founder and CEO Aaron Kennedy said he recognized the Lincoln market as underserved, not necessarily in number of restaurants, but in choices.
“I would agree with the fact that Lincoln seems to have fewer restaurant alternatives than most of the cities we go to,” he said.
Kennedy said his company uses a complex formula that examines everything from education levels to the number of coffee shops in a market, to determine where to put its restaurants. Lincoln ranked in the top quartile of that system, he said.
Noodles & Company, which has opened two restaurants in Lincoln in the past year, targets college towns. And even though it opened its first Nebraska locations in Omaha, “Our intent was to come to Lincoln first,” Kennedy said.
Others who have brought new restaurants to Lincoln, though, said their decisions had little to do with how many restaurants the city already has — or doesn’t.
Josh Westling, a vice president with Tucson, Ariz.-based TransWest Properties, said it wasn’t a lack of restaurants overall in Lincoln, but rather a lack of restaurants in growing southeast Lincoln, that spurred his company to open the state’s first Bennigan’s in Prairie Lake Plaza at 87th Street and Nebraska 2.
“That, combined with the fact that Bennigan’s has been so successful in the Midwest and Lincoln is a solid marketplace, really motivated our decision most,” he said.
It also didn’t hurt that both Westling and the company’s president have ties to the area.
John Rosberg of Norfolk, a master developer for Seattle-based Mexican food chain Taco Del Mar, said he doesn’t see a shortage of restaurants in Lincoln.
“I don’t view it, I guess, as an underdeveloped market,” he said.
But Rosberg, who said he’s “pretty familiar with the market,” sees niche opportunities for quick casual Mexican food restaurants like Taco Del Mar, which plans to open two Lincoln locations — at 27th and Pine Lake and 13th and O — in the next couple of months.
Despite all the new chain restaurants coming to town lately, Runza’s Amend said she still thinks Lincoln has plenty of room for more.
“I think compared to Omaha we’re actually missing a lot of national chains,” she said.
Reach Matt Olberding at 473-2647 or molberding@journalstar.com.
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