At the end of a tour of his latest creation in downtown Minneapolis, Tom Ryan looked around and made a confession. “This is the most fun thing I’ve ever done,” he said.
That’s a good thing, because Tom’s Watch Bar is a quickly growing emerging chain of upgraded sports bars. Sports bars at their core are fun places to be, and if the co-founder doesn’t have fun creating it, how can you expect customers to enjoy going there?
But Ryan will also be doing an awful lot of these. Tom’s has six locations up and running and another seven under development, with leases signed for several more. The brand has plenty of money, thanks to $24 million from its founders and $30 million in financing from Sagard Credit Partners.
This week, Tom’s announced a pair of notable investors, including FrontRange Capital Partners CEO David Robertson and NFL Hall of Fame quarterback John Elway.
Tom’s expects to have enough restaurants in operation by next year to hit $100 million in annualized system sales. And it would be wrong to bet against it. Tom’s Watch Bar is moving into second-generation sites abandoned during the pandemic, making real estate plentiful and less costly. And consumers have been demonstrating a certain demand for entertainment in their dining options.
“The consumer’s changed quite a bit,” Ryan said. “And anytime you have a fairly rapidly changing consumer base, and the category doesn’t respond, there is opportunity.”
Ryan didn’t start out to create a sports bar. The concept was initially called Tom’s Urban, which opened its first location in Las Vegas in 2012. When the company later opened a location across from the Staples Center in Los Angeles, however, Ryan noticed something.
“As we added screens, our traffic and revenue picked up,” he said. And, as they did so, they attracted customers even beyond the crowds who would come in before and after basketball games. “We were drawing traffic in for away games or games not even affiliated with them,” Ryan said. “We thought there was something here, there was something not being taken care of for this modern sports customer.”
The company rebranded to Tom’s Watch Bar in 2019. The pandemic hit the next year. With nothing to do, the founders began thinking about real estate. “When we couldn’t operate, we went into development mode,” Ryan said. That helped Tom’s come out of the pandemic armed with a bunch of leases for new locations.
Those locations are suddenly plentiful. The newest restaurant in Minneapolis is in a former Rosa Mexicano location on a high-traffic street near the Target Center, where the NBA’s Minnesota Timberwolves play, and not far from Target Field, home of the Minnesota Twins. First Avenue, the club Prince made famous, is just a couple of blocks away.
The location provided them with another benefit. “Everything was already here for us,” Ryan said. Second-generation locations can be cheaper to open because existing infrastructure is often already in place.
There are also some drawbacks. He showed off a cooler loaded with kegs that came with the location. It did not have as much room as Ryan would want for a sports bar, so it has fewer options for beer on tap than he’d prefer. Installing a larger walk-in cooler would take too long due to construction and equipment challenges. But, he said, the bottles and cans of beer sell just fine.
The restaurant itself is massive. The first thing you notice is the televisions. They are everywhere, on every wall, and even on the open patio outside. And yet the location doesn’t even have all of them installed yet, a problem rooted in a lack of supply of framing for the televisions to be installed on the walls.
The company offers what Ryan calls a “360-degree experience.” No matter where you look, there is some game on a television.
What is on those televisions is scheduled two weeks in advance and chosen by artificial intelligence based on local community preferences. Customers can see that schedule on the company’s website or app. So, if there are large numbers of Notre Dame football fans in, say, Washington, D.C., then those games will be scheduled.
But it’s not all about men’s sports. “Most sports bars attract customers that are three-quarters male and one-quarter female, and the women are there because they’re with the men,” Ryan said. “We’re closer to 50-50.”
“Women are looking for sports. And they’re looking for an experience that’s elevated,” he added. There is also this: Women’s sports are becoming more popular. The WNBA just recorded its highest viewership in 15 years, for instance. Viewership for the women’s NCAA basketball tournament has also improved. “Women’s sports are taking off,” Ryan said.
That said, there are times when there are no sports on, such as the recent afternoon Ryan provided a tour of the Minneapolis restaurant. In that case, the bars show a mix of unique sporting events from around the world, such as Calcio Storico, or “historic football” played in Florence, Italy, that is sort of an early version of soccer or rugby. Or you can see Russian face-slapping championships or the Inuit ear pull.
Tom’s has deals with local sports teams, such as the NHL’s Avalanche in Denver and the Timberwolves in Minneapolis. And there are Top Golf Swing Suites, or golf simulators, that customers can rent for events. On a visit, Ryan got to view my apparent inability to hit a golf ball with a club.
The Ahi Tuna Tower at Tom's Watch Bar is representative of a more upscale feel.
The menu features plenty of comfort food one would expect in a sports bar, such as Spinach Artichoke Dip, Deep Dish Nachos or Loaded Tots. It’s signature item is Tom’s Famous Prime Rib, featuring three-quarters of a pound of shaved prime rib, Havarti and horseradish cream on a toasted brioche roll with a side of demi-glace and a choice of fries or tots. “It’s like a prime rib dinner in your hand,” Ryan said.
There is also an Ahi Tuna Tower featuring ponzu marinated ahi tuna, jasmine rice, avocado, truffle oil, sesame seeds and crispy onions. Small touches highlight local cuisines, such as Walleye Fingers in Minneapolis or Mambo Sauce Wings in D.C.
“Our food and drink speaks to this new occasion that’s more gender balanced, more modern, more upscale situations, and our service matches it,” Ryan said. “You put it all together, and I think we represent where sports bars need to be for the next generation of sports bar enthusiasts.”