expansion – Memphis Flyer

Staks Pancake Kitchen is about to have a new home outside the Mid-South. Ten new homes, in fact.

Owner Brice Bailey recently announced plans to franchise the Staks brand at 10 new locations through his LLC, The Bailey Group, in partnership with Lynda Sanford, CEO of Atlanta-based Classics Dining and Hospitality group.

“We’ve been working on this for 11 months now, and signed a Franchise Disclosure Document back in June,” Bailey says. “Lynda came to us with a good plan, and we really like the market. She’s done a great job of identifying locations across the state of Georgia, but mainly in the greater Atlanta area.” There have been approaches for franchises in other states as well, but Bailey doesn’t want to rush the process. So for now, the focus remains on Atlanta.

The expansion comes as an added boost for Staks, which bucked the trend and saw increased sales during most of 2020 and 2021. That leaves Bailey confident that the new restaurants can make a big impact beyond the comforts of home.

“We’re a breakfast and lunch place, but I think our uniqueness really helps,” he says. “We’ve got some menu items that are really creative and have become favorites here. For example, our Bomb Melts are made from bomboloni bread, which is used to make Italian donuts. I haven’t seen that anywhere else. It’s just a lot of items you won’t see at your typical upscale breakfast and lunch places.”

Oreo Praline pancakes at Staks Pancake Kitchen

Many of the familiar favorites will remain constant from franchise to franchise, but Bailey wants each new Staks to be a reflection of its environment. He and other leadership at the Bailey Group will urge new owners to add some of their own ideas, all while incorporating ingredients sourced from farms local to the restaurants’ respective areas. “It should feel like a hometown store in whatever market we go into,” he explains.

Bluff City breakfast lovers need not worry — in coming up with new creative items, Staks isn’t turning its back on its two Memphis locations. “We’ve been workshopping a few new things here,” says Clint Kelso, COO of the Bailey Group and general manager at Staks’ Germantown location. “We’ll have stuffed French toast made with that same bomboloni bread. It’s stuffed with cream cheese, covered with a blueberry glaze, and topped with fresh blueberries and strawberries.

“We’re also adding a breakfast Reuben sandwich. The bread is French toast, and it will have cinnamon sugar sauerkraut instead of a traditional thousand island dressing.”

One new item that Bailey is particularly interested in is a barbecue hash recipe. “It’s like a hash-brown from the skillet,” he says, with ham, pulled pork, sausage, and Staks’ own jerk sauce.

But the most exciting development for pancake lovers is proposed additions to an already robust selection of “Sophisticated Staks,” the restaurant’s list of inventive takes on pancakes. Bailey says that pancakes and French toast sales soared during the pandemic. Coupled with plenty of extra time in the kitchen, the team has plenty of ideas.

“We’re definitely going to expand on those menus,” says Bailey. “So if you want to switch it up with something like cinnamon roll French toast, things like that, we’ll be able to accommodate you.”

The Bailey Group plans to be hands-on with all the upcoming Staks locations (including a third local branch in Southaven slated to open within the next six weeks), and has training all planned out. “It’s too early to tell when the first Atlanta location will open,” Kelso says, “but Lynda has plans to open two to three new locations per year.”

The vanilla-glazed, rainbow-sprinkled Birthday Cake pancakes

Like many of its students, the University of Memphis has big dreams.

According to its master plan, the university would like to build an impressive alumni center — with a lush, sprawling lawn — on Highland between Watauga and Midland avenues. The center would serve as the school’s “front door” to the community. Unfortunately, the school doesn’t own that property.

But a new state-funding plan will make it easier for the university to achieve its dream. Under a bank line of credit, the state will make $7 million available to the school immediately to buy property targeted under the university’s master plan. Only $4 million can be used at any one time.

“In the past, whenever the university wanted to expand, we had to purchase properties using cash on hand,” says Teresa Hartnett, director of administration and business analysis for the school. “This will allow us to purchase properties when they become available, rather than turn down prospective sellers because we don’t have the cash.”

Even though the credit line was announced last week, the university isn’t wasting time. The paperwork already is under way to acquire several nearby single-family homes.

“There’s been a demand on the part of the sellers to move forward,” Hartnett says. “We’ve been in discussions with them for the past few months.”

As part of the university’s master plan, presented last fall, the school wants to add pedestrian tunnels under Central Avenue — where vehicular traffic doesn’t always stop — and under Southern and Walker avenues — where trains often do.

In addition, the Park Avenue campus near Getwell, formerly called the South Campus, will be home to a new speech and hearing center and the nursing school.

But perhaps the most significant change will be west of the main campus. The university wants to add a new music center, more student housing, and the alumni center, all located west of Patterson and east of Highland. And in a bit of synergy between town and gown, the University Neighborhood Development Corporation has an intertwining plan for Highland.

According to the Highland Street Master Plan, “the very best college towns embody a close symbiotic relationship between the town and the college. A university rarely supports all the services that its population might require on a day-to-day basis, and a small downtown can thrive on the built-in clientele found on a college campus.”

The community’s plan would turn Highland into the area’s “Main Street.”

“The front door of the university used to be near the railroad tracks,” says Melissa Pearce, president of the University District Initiative (UDI). “Instead of going to Poplar, they’re bringing it home and putting it on Highland.”

The proposed location of the alumni center seems to be an almost symbolic change in attitude between town and gown relations. Pearce, a resident of the university area for 12 years, says the last two administrations have welcomed community involvement. The UDI, for example, includes two representatives from each of the seven neighborhoods surrounding the university, two representatives from the school itself, and two from the business community.

“There’s no more, ‘we’re going to wall up the university to the outside world,'” Pearce says. “Instead it’s, ‘we’re going to invite them in.'”

When Pearce first moved to the area, people told her it was a “dead zone.”

“Highland has been overlooked for decades, and it shows,” she says. “When we’re through, Highland will be incredible.”

She thinks the proposed changes to Highland will be hard for some people to get used to but are ultimately needed.

“The most important part of the community plan is the positive impact it will have on Highland and thus the surrounding residential areas,” Pearce says. “We’re trying to incorporate the new and the old, so you don’t lose the history of the area, but you don’t keep things you know need to go.”

And, with the new state funding, students and nearby residents might start seeing changes sooner than later.

“It will allow us to acquire the properties in a reasonable amount of time,” Hartnett says of the state’s line of credit. “We can achieve the goals of the master plan without having to wait 20 years to purchase a piece of land here and a piece of land there.”