Wednesday, February 3, 2010, Myrtle Beach - With a slow and steady pace, The Greene Turtle is advancing into the Carolinas.

 

Based in Edgewater, Md., The Greene Turtle Sports Bar & Grille is a casual dining/sports bar and grille concept launched in 1976 in Ocean City, Md. It has 24 locations – most in Maryland – with a few more in Washington, D.C., Delaware and Virginia. Now the company’s president and CEO, J. Michael Sanford, says the plan is to expand southward.

 

Sanford says the company’s progression into the Carolinas is a sensible geographic direction, and they’d like to eventually have 25 to 30 stores in North Carolina and 20 to 25 in South Carolina.

 

“We have two choices,” he said on Feb. 1 in a phone interview, “fast growth or smart and slow growth. We want the smart and slow way to give the best possible chance for success to franchisees. Another reason we want to move into the North Carolina/South Carolina area is that it’s a smart direction for us to grow. We want to be in places we (corporate representatives) can get to quickly, whether by a four- or five-hour drive in a car or hopping on a plane. That’s why you’ll see our growth in this Mid-Atlantic area…we like the whole idea of being able to support franchisees physically and help with site selection, site approval, implementation, training and ongoing support. We would put our support systems up against anybody.”

 

The ideal situation would be to find one franchisee willing to develop three to five Greene Turtles in the Grand Strand area, Sanford said. One store’s franchise fee is $45,000, and the unit build-out ranges from $700,000 to $1.5 million, depending if an existing space is retrofitted or a new structure is built. He added the ability for Greene Turtles to adapt to different specs from 5,500 to 8,000 square feet is one of the chain’s strong advantages.

 

Tom Finn, the Vice President of Franchise Development for The Greene Turtle, was in Myrtle Beach recently to meet with potential franchisees.

 

“Tom had specific interviews set up with one or two groups from the Myrtle Beach area,” Sanford said. “He got a good feeling.”

 

Sanford says The Greene Turtle’s competitors are concepts such as Beef O’Brady’s and Buffalo Wild Wings.

 

“But we are more of a full service restaurant,” he said. “We are more far-reaching…The biggest unique thing we do from a design standpoint is we have televisions in each of our booths. Booths take up 50 percent of our dining space; there are 15 to 25 in every restaurant, and each has 20-inch high def LCD TVs that people sitting in those booths are able to change to whatever sports events they like, or for families the kids can put Nickelodeon on.”

 

The Greene Turtle menu features Certified Angus Beef burgers, wings, sliders, sandwiches, soups and salads. Sanford says a couple of his favorite sandwiches are the Chicken Chesapeake Sandwich where a grilled chicken breast is topped with cheese, bacon and Crab Imperial; and their new Boom Boom Burger that is deep-fried and topped with an onion ring and spicy/cheesy Boom Boom Sauce.

 

Sanford says he is confident visitors and locals will like The Greene Turtle because people in Ocean City like it a lot, and he sees similarities between Ocean City and Myrtle Beach.

 

“It’s the whole casual beach location, touristy destination we’re looking for.”