Restaurant owner says he’s fixed service issues, asks Wichita to give him another chance
A little more than a year after opening Wichita’s first Hurricane Sports Grill, franchisee Austin Kinzle has hit the reset button. And he’s asking Wichita to give the place another chance.
Kinzle, who opened the restaurant in the new Tyler Pointe development at 13th and Tyler in November 2017, said he miscalculated a few key things when he first opened the doors.
The first was the pricing structure, he said, and in May, he announced a plan to lower menu prices an average of 15 percent across the board. People responded well to that change, he said, and now prices are where they need to be for the Wichita market.
But he soon realized he had an even bigger problem: customer service. The restaurant was getting hammered on social media by customers who said they liked the food but had been unimpressed with the service.
“The original team we put together didn’t have the sophistication that was really needed to get this restaurant off the ground,” Kinzle said. “It was pretty clear that we weren’t delivering on that promise of the quality of service that we had fully intended to have delivered, and that was a real disappointment to us because we really wanted to bring something great and wonderful that was different to enhance the community. Falling a little bit short of that was a difficult pill for us to swallow.”
In response, Kinzle made dramatic changes to his front-of-house staffing. All but six of his original servers and managers are gone, Kinzle said, and he hired a firm out of Kansas City to find him a general manager who could straighten things out.
It turns out, he said, the manager he needed was already in Wichita. In October, Kinzle hired Bobby Bromlow, who had been working for the past two years at Todd Brian’s in Old Town. Bromlow has worked in and helped open a long list of restaurants during his career, including Buffalo Wild Wings, Hooters and Amarillo Grill.
Bromlow said he spent the first several weeks at Hurricane Sports Grill observing and then started making changes. One problem, he noticed, was that the restaurant was actually overstaffed, causing servers to literally bump into each other while trying to do their jobs.
He now has a crew of 26 that he describes as a “well-oiled machine,” and he hired a personable assistant general manager — Curtis Rice — who has been a hit with customers.
Things have improved dramatically, Kinzle said, and so have the restaurant’s reviews on social media.
Now, he just needs Wichita to come in and give the restaurant another chance, he said.
If they do, in addition to improved service, they’ll find a new “local favorites” section on the menu and lots of generous drink specials, including half-price pints on Tuesdays and $4.75 large draft beers all weekend.
“We really want the community to understand that we have this restaurant operating the way we need it to and want it to now, and we’re hoping we have the opportunity to share these changes and really give that experience that we wanted to from the very beginning.”
Hurricane Sports Grill is part of a beach-themed chain based out of West Palm Beach, Fla., that has 80 restaurants across the country. The closest one to Wichita is in Iowa.
Its menu is large, and its specialty is its wings with 35 different types of dipping sauces. It also serves street tacos, burgers, sandwiches, salads and entrees like steak, ribs and grilled shrimp.
Its hours are 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Sundays through Thursdays and 11 a.m. to midnight Fridays and Saturdays.
This story was originally published January 16, 2019 at 8:18 AM.
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