A representative of the Wingers USA restaurant chain says he plans to open a new Wingers Grill & Bar restaurant at the Spokane Valley Mall in a building that had been occupied by a Tony Romas restaurant, which closed earlier this month.


The new Wingers diner is expected to open in early August at 14742 E. Indiana, says Lance Jensen, who will own the restaurant through North Bend, Wash.-based Caddis Restaurants LLC. Jensen, who is the Washington state developer for Wingers USA, says the Valley restaurant will be the chains first in Washington and will be a training center for franchisees who will operate future Wingers diners in the state. A restaurant in Yakima is slated to open next year.


We think the Spokane area eventually will hold three Wingers, Jensen says.


The new Wingers restaurant here will employ about 70 people, half of whom will be former employees of Tony Romas, with the others newly hired, Jensen says. Caddis Restaurants is doing minor remodeling work in the 6,000-square-foot leased building to turn it into a family restaurant with a sports-bar like atmosphere, he says.


The Slaymaker Group Inc., which is the Salt Lake City-based parent of Wingers USA, also owned the franchise rights to the Valley Tony Romas and currently owns the Tony Romas restaurant at 7640 N. Division. The company, which bought the franchise operations in 1999, once operated 16 such eateries in Washington, Utah, and Arizona, says CEO Scott Slaymaker. The company has slowly phased out those restaurants, though, and now only operates the one on Spokanes North Side. Slaymaker says he doesnt know how long The Slaymaker Group will keep that restaurant, but the company doesnt plan to close it anytime soon.


We still like the Tony Romas brand, but Wingers is more of an every-day use restaurant, whereas Tony Romas is special occasion or destination, Slaymaker says. We decided strategically some time ago that we needed to narrow our focus.


The Salt Lake City-based Wingers USA chain includes nine company-owned and 30 franchisee-owned restaurants in the western U.S. and Germany, with 20 more planned to open within the next few years, he says. A franchisee closed a Wingers in Post Falls about six months ago.


The Wingers design concept is now dramatically different from that restaurant, Slaymaker says. There were some issues with accessibility in that location, and the franchisee wanted to focus more of his efforts elsewhere in Idaho.