The rallying cry of the impatient party animal is that it must be 5 o’clock somewhere. If there’s a Ruby Slipper restaurant nearby, there’s no need to wait until Saturday for a weekend brunch experience, either.
The full-service operation is positioned squarely within the burgeoning daytime dining segment via restaurants sporting the names Ruby Slipper Cafe and Ruby Sunshine. But its emphasis is on delivering a New Orleans-style brunch rich in Big Easy and Southern specialties, solid and liquid. The menu lists more cocktail choices than it does egg and pancake options combined.
“We happen to do breakfast and lunch, but its brunch that really sets us apart,” says Peter Gaudreau, CEO of 22-unit Ruby Slipper Restaurant Group. “People are coming to us for an experience. It’s something you feel around the brunch table.”
The approach has yielded a unit sales average of nearly $3 million from checks averaging $20 per person, according to Gaudreau, who came to Ruby Slipper from Snooze. About 30% of the intake comes from the sale of alcoholic beverages.
Delivery and takeout are offered at some but not all units, according to Ruby Slipper’s website, and currently account for 8-10% of total sales, according to Gaudreau.
“It’s not a convenience experience,” he says. “There’s that extra Southern hospitality, there’s the music. It’s not a quiet restaurant. There’s a party going on.”
Everything is made from scratch, Gaudreau continues. The in-house prep extends to slow-roasting the cochon used in the Buttermilk Biscuit Sliders (one made with debris, the other with fried chicken and pork, both available at a price of two for $10).
Specialties include shrimp and grits ($15.50), biscuits and gravy ($13) and Grilled Fish St. Peter (grilled fish of the day served over a cheesy grits cake and accompanied by a skewer of shrimp, $16.50).
The most expensive food item (and one of the bigger sellers, according to Gaudreau) is the Trifecta, a $20 platter of three Benedicts (fried chicken on a biscuit with tasso sauce; pork debris on a biscuit with hollandaise sauce; and grilled shrimp on a biscuit with tasso and creole tomato sauce, served with fried green tomatoes).
Cocktails are priced at $10, with the exception of a flight of seasonal mimosas for $20.
The menu changes four times a year.
The first Ruby Slipper, a Ruby Slipper Cafe, was opened in the Mid-City section of New Orleans in 2008, when the home of Mardi Gras was still recovering from Hurricane Katrina’s mid-2005 wallop. The venture proved popular with local residents, businesspeople and tourists alike, according to the company.
It has since expanded into six states, with a focus on the Southeast. As the Ruby brand has grown, it’s benefited from tourists’ recognition of the concept from their visits to New Orleans, Gaudreau says.
He voices confidence that Ruby Slipper Restaurant Group will grow to 30 locations within 18 months.
The group is still owned by the couple who founded Ruby Slipper, New Orleans locals Jennifer and Erich Weishaupt. The site of the original restaurant now also serves as corporate headquarters.