MOOYAH Burgers will open its second Baton Rouge location later this year on Lee Drive, between LSU and the new Lee Magnet High School, and the new restaurant could serve as a demo for future high-volume locations.
Chuck Kerr, MOOYAH Burger franchisee and owner of the location at 6555 Siegen Lane, says he and architects with the fast casual chain have discussed changing the layout to give the restaurant a second, smaller kitchen, in addition to the normal kitchen space, as well as a larger dry storage area and walk-in cooler in the back.
The idea is to use that second kitchen area to create what Kerr calls grab bags—pre-cooked hamburgers with fries and condiment packs—that customers can run in, purchase at a special register set up for those items, and head back out. Those grab bags would be ideal for a student heading to school or a football fan heading to campus for a home game in the fall, Kerr says.
“The idea behind this store is to help MOOYAH and beta test what a high volume store might look like,” Kerr says. “MOOYAH has never designed anything like this before.”
The new concept would also allow the store to sell catering packages, Kerr says.
“It keeps re-emphasizing the potential of MOOYAH,” he says.
Kerr says his Siegen Lane location pulls in about $9,800 a day in sales, making it the highest grossing MOOYAH store in the country. He hopes the second location at 320 Lee Drive can bring in about $20,000 daily.
The new location will not be ready to open until the fourth quarter of this year. An old car wash sits on the Lee Drive location now. The landowner will demolish the car wash and build two 8,500-square-foot buildings, one of which will be MOOYAH Burger’s new home.
The new location is ideal for Kerr, who did not want the restaurant to be strictly for LSU students or strictly for nearby residents. It’s right in between both areas, which Kerr says is key to making sure the restaurant weathers the summers and winters when school is out.
He points to the MOOYAH on the campus of the University of Connecticut. The restaurant sits on the fringes of campus and does very well when school is in session, but it suffers when students are on break.
“I didn’t want to be too far into the residential end, but I didn’t want to be too close to campus,” Kerr says.
The Lee Drive store will be the third MOOYAH Burgers in the Capital Region, following the first store on Siegen Lane and the Gonzales store that opened in December.
—Ryan Broussard
