Buffalo Wild Wings, Five Guys Burgers & Fries to open soon
Hazel Dell will soon have two new dining choices nearly opposite one another on Northwest 78th Street, a location chosen for its proximity to Interstate 5.
“They like the fact that this is on a major freeway and a major arterial street,” said David Copenhaver, vice president of Gramor Development, which operates the retail centers where the new restaurants will open.
Five Guys Burgers and Fries is expected to open this month in the Hazel Dell Crossing near the northeast corner of 78th Street and Hazel Dell Avenue. Buffalo Wild Wings Grill & Bar is expected to break ground in January on a $2.2 million restaurant in Hazel Dell Square on the southeast quadrant of the same corner. Buffalo Wild Wings is to open in June.
Copenhaver called the Five Guys Burgers and Fries concept a cross between casual dining and quick service, with a focus on made-to-order hamburgers.
The Buffalo Wild Wings restaurant is casual dining with a sports-bar flavor.
“They both have quite a following,” Copenhaver said.
The Five Guys Burgers and Fries restaurant in Hazel Dell will be one of three opened so far by its Portland-based franchise operator, Northwest Burgers and Fries. Phone and e-mail messages to the company were not returned. It already has opened locations in Beaverton and West Linn, Ore.
“They are on a very aggressive expansion mode, right now,” Copenhaver said.
Dinner as an event
Operators of Buffalo Wild Wings are also planning for rapid expansion, said Wray Hutchinson, managing member of MBH Holding LLC, which owns rights to the franchise in the Portland area and in Los Angeles.
The restaurant’s menu features chicken wings with special dipping sauces and 24 kinds of beer on tap. Each restaurant is equipped with about a dozen 120-inch projector screen TVs and between 20 and 30 high-definition plasma screens with sound systems.
“You’re really enveloped in the audio-visual experience,” Hutchinson said, calling it an alternative to a separate dinner and a movie.
“Now, dinner is becoming the event,” he said.
The company has so far opened sites in downtown Portland and at Portland’s Cascade Station, near the region’s only IKEA store off of Interstate 205 at the Portland International Airport exit.
The Cascade Station site was ranked among the top 20 in sales for the 660-restaurant chain this year, said Hutchinson, who launched the company with partner Christopher Minoza.
The company’s other partners, Tom Cook and Dennis January, are also partners in Pacific Bells in Vancouver, which owns an 80-restaurant Taco Bell franchise chain.
“It’s a group with a lot of experience,” said Hutchinson, who has worked for the restaurant franchise McDonald’s and the child care franchise Kindercare. “We believe we’re going to be highly successful here.”
