Yesterday as I was walking down the Main Street Mall I saw this sign in the window of 51 S. Main:
Krispy Krunchy Chicken is coming to Downtown. I looked up the website and this is a chain, with over 600 locations. A number of restaurants, including Renee’s Sandwich Shop and Hari’s, have been unable to make this location work. A chain might be able to. For one thing, a chain can absorb the losses a new restaurant in this location will incur, as it will take a while to get “discovered.” Also, a chain is likely to have more marketing knowledge than owners of independent restaurants. Every restaurant that has previously been in that space was, in my opinion, poorly marketed.
Between Monroe and Union on the Main Street Mall, this location is far enough away from Gus’s to suffer from competition with them. Best of luck to the people opening the restaurant, and I’ll be by for some chicken soon.