When Walk-On’s Bistreaux and Bar celebrated its 10th anniversary last September, few suspected its co-founders and longtime partners, Brandon Landry and Jack Warner, were on the verge of splitting up.
After all, Landry and Warner were a team, and the Landry-Warner narrative is central to the whole Walk-On’s brand: Two improbable hoopsters walk on to the LSU basketball team in the mid-1990s, spend the better part of the season on the bench, become fast friends, hatch the Walk-On’s idea, and grow it into Last In Concepts, a multi-concept restaurant company with 12 locations and $27 million in revenues.
The idea of Walk-On’s without the two walk-ons was, well, almost inconceivable, and certainly not on the public radar when the restaurant proudly marked a decade in existence.
In fact, though, by September Landry and Warner were well on their way to parting ways. Separation talks had begun months earlier, when New Orleans-based businessman Rick Farrell approached Landry about buying into the company and taking Walk-On’s national. Farrell, 53, owns the downtown New Orleans building which houses Walk-On’s hugely popular Crescent City location, and the retired energy trader had become friends with Landry since becoming his landlord. Though Farrell didn’t force Warner out, the former clearly had a vision for the company that didn’t include the latter.
“That was the toughest conversation I ever had,” says Landry of broaching the subject with Warner. “I didn’t want Jack to think we didn’t want him or that we wanted to get rid of him. It was just a good opportunity.”
Warner says he initially was not interested in the buyout. But Farrell kept upping the ante and eventually made him an offer too good to refuse. “The key to life is knowing when to hold, when to fold and when to walk away,” Warner says. “This was an opportunity.”
In late January, the deal was finalized. Though financial terms were not disclosed, Farrell and Landry are now equal partners in Last In Concepts, which owns Walk-On’s, with its four locations; Happy’s Irish Pub, which has three locations; and Walk-On’s Catering. Warner is sole owner of The Roux House, a music venue downtown, and Schlittz & Giggles, a pizza restaurant chain with two Baton Rouge outlets. Warner will also retain a minority interest in Last In Concepts.
“No one has to feel sorry for me,” says Warner. “I did OK. This was a good opportunity for everybody.”
Those who know Warner and Landry well say despite their unified public persona as a team, there was always tension between them. Warner was widely known as the cerebral, serious one, who tended to the books and got involved in civic issues like downtown redevelopment. Landry was perceived as the fun one, the people person, who was, increasingly, the front man for Walk-On’s. It’s a characterization they don’t dispute.
“I was more out there in the public and doing a lot of PR work,” Landry says. “Jack knew the numbers and really enjoyed that type of stuff—putting a plan together, coming up with the concepts.”
For a time it worked well, and the partners’ differences complemented each other. But over the years, they increasingly grew apart as they matured and their company grew bigger and more complex.
“It’s great to be diverse and have a pizza restaurant and a sports bar restaurant and an Irish pub and a music club,” Landry says. “But different concepts are different concepts, and it’s a very demanding business with just one concept, let alone four.”
Especially when one of those concepts is demanding a lot more time and attention than the others. Walk-On’s has been Last In Concepts’ signature concept and its flagship brand. It has grown the most rapidly of the four concepts, too, accounting for more than 70% of company revenues. Part of that growth over the past year was fueled by the marketing boost the brand got when ESPN viewers voted the New Orleans Walk-On’s Best Sports Bar in North America.
“I can’t tell you the calls and texts and emails I have gotten from that,” Landry says. “Venture capitalists, equity firms It has generated a lot of interest.”
Farrell was interested in Walk-On’s long before the ESPN award. In fact, Landry says, Farrell had considered Walk-On’s in 2010 as a potential tenant for the vacant New Orleans building he had purchased after Hurricane Katrina. Landry invited Farrell to meet him for lunch at the Burbank Drive Walk-On’s, and within 10 minutes Farrell was sold on the concept for his Crescent City venue.
Though Farrell is not a native of the Crescent City, he knows Louisiana well. He came to the Bayou State from Maine to attend LSU. Coincidentally—some might say, poetically—he was a walk-on to the Tigers’ 1979 baseball team, though he saw even less action on the field than did Landry or Warner on the court.
After college, he went into the energy trading business and moved to Houston, where he built Tricon Energy into a multibillion-dollar energy investment firm. He sold his interest in the company six years ago and relocated to New Orleans, his wife’s hometown, where he lives in the Garden District and is a big supporter of professional sports. He hosted a swank gathering for VIPs before last year’s Super Bowl, for instance, and keeps a suite in the New Orleans Arena, where Landry is a frequent guest for Pelicans basketball games. During one of those games early last year, the two first started talking about taking Walk-On’s to the next level.
For now, their plans for national growth are still vague. The next year or so will be focused on honing the concept and opening more restaurants in Louisiana. A new Towne Center location will open later this year, and a ground-up restaurant is scheduled for Houma for early 2015. Several others are on the drawing board.
“Who knows how big this will go,” Landry says. “We are not putting a time line on a number of units or sales. We are going to go at our own pace. That’s the beauty of this. Rick is a long-term investor.”
The new partners have their work cut out for them. Experts say the sports bar market is very competitive, especially because so many restaurants now have TVs, most of which are tuned to sports.
“There are a lot of chain restaurants and a ton of local restaurants with flat-screen televisions, good food and good service,” says Jonathan Maze, an editor with the trade publication Franchise Times. “Even Wendy’s is installing flat-screen televisions in its newly remodeled outlets.”
As an example of just how tough the market is, F&H Acquisition, the parent company of the Fox and Hound and Champps sports bar chains, filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection late last year. The company shuttered many of its restaurants around the country, including a Fox and Hound location in Baton Rouge, blaming the recession and lagging sales for its woes.
“It’s a competitive market,” says Maze. “That’s not to say a company (like Last In Concepts) can’t do it. It’s just not going to be easy.”
Landry believes Walk-On’s emphasis on fresh, Louisiana food will give it an edge over the Buffalo Wild Wings of the world. Though Walk-On’s was panned for its food quality when it opened in 2003, it has since considerably improved its offerings, to the point, says Landry, that the Lafayette location was named that city’s best new restaurant two years in a row.
“We are a restaurant first and foremost,” he says, noting that food sales account for 70% of the chain’s restaurant revenues. “No one else has what we have fresh, quality Louisiana cuisine and sports.”
While Landry and his new partner focus on Walk-On’s, Warner is mulling a variety of options. For now, he is concentrating on The Roux House and Schlittz & Giggles, the latter of which he believes is a concept “with some legs” that he could grow as a franchise operation or, even, sell.
But Warner suggests he may be interested in getting out of the bar and restaurant business altogether. Throughout the growth of his downtown establishments—Roux House, Happy’s, and Schlittz & Giggles—he has been as interested in the development of the downtown entertainment scene as in the success of the individual businesses. He has been an advocate of creating an entertainment district downtown—the better to attract young professionals to the city—and has also been involved in historic building restorations.
Now that he has the wherewithal to do some serious investing, Warner says he may want to play in a pond that is bigger than beer, burgers, and boudin balls, however well-prepared they may be. He is interested in real estate development, maybe in Baton Rouge, maybe out of state. Regardless, he is excited about the possibilities.
“A number of people have come to me, and I’m just kind of looking at those opportunities to see what is the best fit,” he says. “It’s nice to know I don’t have to just do one thing to make money. Now I can make change and create opportunities for other people.”
