"We don't want to be known as the old Shoney's. We want to be the new Mama Margie's." That's how Pat Stehling, a manager and the site developer for Mama Margie's, describes the new restaurant that is under construction in Northwest San Antonio.
The second Mama Margie's is set to open in mid-December; the restaurant will occupy an old Shoney's site at 9950 Interstate 10 West, just off I-10 and Wurzbach Road on the Northwest Side.
The original Mama Margie's is located at 2503 Southwest Military Drive, by South Park Mall.
The proprietor is Margie Abonce, whom Stehling describes as a "very motherly figure and beautiful lady." Her experience in the restaurant business goes back about 25 years.
The new Mama Margie's will be considerably larger than the original restaurant - 6,200 square feet compared to 3,800 square feet, Stehling says. Like the original, the new restaurant will include an open-air patio. But while the Mama Margie's on S.W. Military only has one drive-through lane, the I-10 location will have two, Stehling adds.
What will not change is the Tex-Mex food that Mama Margie's patrons already enjoy - including the restaurant's famous garlicky beans.
Turning the old Shoney's into the new Mama Margie's has required some extensive work, says Stehling, adding that all that was kept intact was the shell of the building. The inside was completely redone.
"Everybody in the food business is so specialized," explains Stehling, meaning that it has taken a lot to add the Mama Margie's touches to the old Shoney's space. For example, Mama Margie's has a much more open kitchen design than Shoney's did.
"We show the fajitas grilling, the bakery, we like to display the fresh foods we serve," Stehling says.
Stehling adds that the business had been looking for a second site for about two years - with that search being focused primarily on the city's Northwest Side.
It was a record turnout for this year's Texas Idea Exchange, an annual event of the New York-based trade organization the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC).
This year's event was held in downtown San Antonio from Nov. 6-8 and brought together retailers, developers, brokers, etc., from around the country - but mostly from Texas - that were looking to do deals in the Lone Star state.
This is the second year that ICSC has held its Texas Idea Exchange in the Alamo City. The organization is committed to holding the annual event here through at least 2003.
The attendance for the 2002 Idea Exchange surpassed the 1,000 mark, said Michael C. Ainbinder during opening remarks for the event. In years' past, when the Idea Exchange was rotated between Dallas and Houston, attendance was capping out at about 700 people, according to Ainbinder, who is the ICSC state director, and chairman and CEO of Houston-based The Ainbinder Co.
One of the highlights of the event was the retail roundup, in which retailers discuss their expansion plans for Texas and the South Central United States. While San Antonio was not on the radar screen of all the retailers, there were a couple of presentations that stood out.
One Johnny Carino's is already up and running here, and Fired Up has two additional units under development in San Antonio, according to Christopher Burton of Fired Up Marketing. While Burton did not elaborate on specific locations for the new Johnny Carino's, he did say that Fired Up likes to make "a ring around the city." The company is attracted to power centers and major highway arteries, he adds. The first Johnny Carino's is located at 11719 Bandera Road, by the Bandera Pointe Shopping Center.
Tricia Lynn Silva can be reached via e-mail at tsilva@bizjournals.com.