Paul Mangiamele first told me he planned to bring back Steak and Ale more than a decade ago, not long after he took over Bennigan’s and settled the chain down following a rather, uh, tumultuous few years.
So, we have to acknowledge a bit of skepticism when that vow returned more recently, along with plans for an actual restaurant. It’s not that we didn’t think he really wanted to. It’s just very hard to bring a brand back from the dead, especially a full-service chain 16 years after it was shut down in a dramatic Chapter 7 bankruptcy filing.
And yet, here I was, in a Minneapolis suburb, watching a couple of guys taking selfies in front of an actual Steak and Ale restaurant.
Mangiamele waited inside, wearing jeans and a red Steak and Ale tshirt. “It’s about a legacy,” he said.
Steak and Ale was a pioneer of casual dining’s rise and a symbol of its subsequent decline. Its return is a testament to the power of a really good brand and consumers’ connection to them.
A stone walkway down the center of the restaurant is a nod to the chain's old Tudor style.
Abused
Steak and Ale was a pioneer in the casual- dining sector, and its fall in many ways reflects the decline of full-service chain dining.
Norman Brinker founded the chain in 1966. It was billed as an upscale steak concept at affordable prices and designed to look like an old English pub, with a Tudor-style décor and dimly lit dining rooms said to be great places to take dates you’d prefer not be made entirely public.
The brand changed hands several times but for its last 15 years of its existence was owned by the Metromedia Restaurant Group, which also owned Bennigan’s as well as the Ponderosa and Bonanza brands.
And then in 2008, S&A Restaurant Group, the subsidiary that owned Bennigan’s and Steak and Ale, was forced into a Chapter 7 bankruptcy by its lender, the now-defunct GE Capital. Workers famously arrived at work that day to find padlocks on the doors and themselves out of jobs.
An investment firm, Atalaya Capital Management, was able to take control of Bennigan’s franchised stores, effectively keeping that brand alive. But Steak and Ale, which was all company-run, was shut. By that point, it had fewer than 60 restaurants, less than a quarter of the number it had at its peak.
Mangiamele, a career restaurateur, would later become CEO of Bennigan’s and helped stabilize that brand amid lawsuits and other issues. He then bought the brand and the rights to Steak and Ale through Legendary Restaurant Brands.
“They’ve been abused,” Mangiamele said of Bennigan’s and Steak and Ale.
Demand for Steak and Ale has been around for years. Facebook groups have been formed by people demanding someone bring it back.
Mangiamele himself has fed into that. He first told me he wanted to bring back Steak and Ale in 2013. He’s said so at other times in subsequent years. And in 2020 Bennigan’s on its website said that a location of the brand was under construction in Mexico.
Yet bringing a brand back from the dead is difficult. Mangiamele said that he’s spent a cumulative five years to get to this point. He had to find the recipes of classic items, such as the Honey Wheat bread delivered to the table when customers first come in, as well as equipment such as the cutting board with a hole for the butter cup the bread is served on.
Many of those things simply weren’t available. “We had to feel around for everything,” he said.
A salad bar, overseen by wine barrels decorating the walls.
The restaurant
Mangiamele ultimately found a franchise group, Endeavor Properties, that signed a 15-unit deal to open Steak and Ales in the Midwest. The group had a ready-to-go location in Burnsville, Minnesota, about 15 minutes south of Minneapolis.
That location isn’t what you might recall as a classic Steak and Ale. It’s not a stand-alone restaurant but is attached to a Wyndham hotel and seats only about 150 people.
But, Mangiamele said, “This is the beta. When we start getting stand-alone restaurants up they’re going to be phenomenal.”
Yet the restaurant as constructed is a bow to the realities of modern unit economics. The simple fact is, building restaurants today to look like something out of the 15th century would require a lot of sales to generate a profit.
“You’d need to spend two and a half, three million,” Mangiamele said. “You’d need to do five and a half to six million to make that work, at least.”
As such, the company has no plans to build those. Instead, it will focus its construction efforts on second-generation sites, not a bad idea given the number of closed casual-dining restaurants in the market right now. The lower buildout costs are particularly important to the franchisees that will primarily be the ones building these things.
The hotel location certainly has some benefits. Mangiamele spends about three months of the year in the Minneapolis area, so he can keep a close eye on the restaurant. And the location is just off I-35, a major North-South corridor. He believes people on that freeway could see a sign and stop by.
“You’re going to pull off because you don’t see this anywhere,” Mangiamele said.
Honey Wheat bread is served at every table.
The nostalgia
Indeed, that brand awareness is key for the chain’s potential success this time around. Steak and Ale has successfully generated plenty of media attention in the weeks since news of its impending opening surfaced.
“We’re using that emotional connection for awareness and traffic,” Mangiamele said. “I love the attention. I love the nostalgia. I love the loyalty.”
So, while the restaurant itself might not look exactly like it used to, it still needs enough to satisfy consumers’ nostalgia for the brand once they get in.
Let’s start with the salad bar. That was a key part of the brand’s DNA.
“I knew if I didn’t have a salad bar I’d be tarred and feathered,” Mangiamele said.
So, too, was the Honey Wheat bread. The name is clearly there in the chain’s old logo, and the restaurant itself pays homage to its Tudor heritage, with a fireplace and a stone walkway in the center of the restaurant. And it remains dimly lit inside, though there is plenty of artwork showing off the brand in its heyday, including a watercolor print featuring a Bennigan’s next to a Steak and Ale on a snowy day.
But it’s in the menu where the nostalgia is really fed. The menu features a lot of the brand’s classics, such as prime rib, Hawaiian Chicken and the Kensington Club. “It’s the menu and the name that’s really selling,” Mangiamele said.
The restaurant features a bar in the center and has an extensive beverage menu, with specialty drinks and some rather high-end options, such as a $50-per-glass Caymus Cabernet Sauvignon.
The company has plans to open more locations, particularly in the South and in Texas, where the chain grew up.
Whether Steak and Ale can thrive this time may be beyond the point. The brand’s return in many ways exemplifies what makes this business so fantastic. Steak and Ale was dead. And yet 16 years later, somebody manages to open one with the same logo and people will take selfies out of the front door.