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New Beef's Opens With Rooms To Grow

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By LAURA FRAZIER

The Tampa Tribune

Published: September 24, 2008

BRANDON - Chris Lewis spent beaucoup bucks to beef up a former nightclub and help a restaurant chain with deep local roots spread its hot-sauced wings.

Lewis is gearing up for the Oct. 6 grand opening of Beef O'Brady's inside the Best Western Hotel and Conference Center on Adamo Drive.

Lewis, co-owner of the hotel, is partnering with longtime business associates Rob Wolfenden, Mike Brooks and John Harris to launch what representatives of Beef's corporate office say could be the most unusual of their 254 franchise restaurants in 20 states across the Southeast and Midwest.

Beef O'Brady's President Nick Vojnovic said the new eatery is "a deluxe Beef's" and "a hybrid" because it is inside and shares amenities with a hotel and banquet facility - a first for the chain.

Lewis plans to combine both businesses and create a synergy between them. He hopes to build the restaurant business as the main attraction and, in turn, drive hotel traffic.

"You can have your end-of-the-year banquet or birthday party inside, then Dad can sit in the restaurant and watch football while the kids are outside in the pool," Lewis said. "And you even have access to a room for your guests to change. Everyone's happy."

The Adamo Drive location also breaks Beef's tradition of operating restaurants in residential neighborhoods. But Lewis and Vojnovic agree that setting up shop in a commercial area lined with businesses and hungry employees could be a very good thing.

They expect about 80 percent of their customers to be the weekday work crowd, as opposed to Beef's typical weekend and evening patronage.

"We're in lunch country," Lewis said.

On Sept. 12, three weeks before the grand opening, workers arrived at the revamped, 4,000-square-foot space to install light fixtures, security cameras, Plexiglas shadowboxes to display sports memorabilia and 22 flat-screen TVs.

In front of the restaurant, workers put the finishing touches on a shaded, open-air cigar bar while staff members inside stocked the bar shelves. The restaurant will be the first Beef's in the Tampa Bay area to offer liquor in addition to the beer and wine served at all locations.

Vojnovic said test runs at about 25 franchises showed no evidence that serving liquor detracted from the chain's family-friendly philosophy.

"We found that women were the ones that were losing out," Vojnovic said. "They wanted to come in and have a margarita or a daiquiri."

Vojnovic said Lewis' strong community ties are a good fit for the company's guiding tenets: to be an integral part of the community with a love of people and sports. Lewis already has hosted a charity function for the Brandon Rotary Club at the new eatery. He donated the use of the facility and service for free and provided the food at cost.

"Chris Lewis has been a coach for Brandon Area Youth Soccer League and King High for many years," Vojnovic said. "He has always been involved with organizations like youth sports groups, the Rotary Club and chamber of commerce."

Vojnovic noted that Lewis' wife, Jeanne, is a longtime supporter of Everyday Blessings, a Rotary service project that aids children who have been abused, abandoned or removed from their homes by the state. He said the couple also are active at St. Stephen Catholic Church.

"Chris and Jeanne do a lot of great things in the Brandon area," he said. "We love this guy."

Reporter Laura Frazier can be reached at (813) 657-4523 or

lfrazier@tampatrib.com.

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