Sunday, August 20, 2006
Chick-fil-A to open spot at Va. Western
Jenny Kincaid Boone
Jenny reports on the latest news on the Roanoke Valley retail industry.
Recent stories
Chick-fil-A is selling its chicken sandwiches and sweet tea at a new Roanoke Valley spot.
Randy Childress, a franchisee who owns Chick-fil-A at Tanglewood Mall, is expanding the business and opening another location at Virginia Western Community College in Roanoke. The fast-food chicken restaurant chain will replace a basic, cafeteria-style restaurant that has operated at Virginia Western since the college opened in 1966.
The new Chick-fil-A is set to open Monday , which is the first day of the college’s fall classes.
Another Chick-fil-A franchisee opened a location at Patrick Henry Community College in Martinsville successfully, so Childress and his wife, Angela, thought the chain would be a hit at Virginia Western, where there is a larger number of students. There are more than 9,000 students enrolled at the college.
But this Chick-fil-A isn’t just for students and college faculty and staff, Childress said. The public also can eat there. It will be open Monday through Friday from 7:30 a.m. to 7 p.m., serving breakfast, lunch and dinner.
You’ll find Chick-fil-A in the college’s cafeteria on the first floor of its Business Sciences building.
Meanwhile, Childress’ Chick-fil-A location at Tanglewood is set to reopen in early September. It closed at the end of July to make room for renovations on the mall’s upper level.
This fall, Steve & Barry’s University Sportswear will take over the former food court location on the mall’s second floor, which includes Chick-fil-A’s former spot.
Chick-fil-A is moving to a new space across from the old food court.
The restaurant will have a larger kitchen, but the seating area will be about the same size, Childress said. The one downside, he said, is there won’t be a food court area for additional seating for diners.
The Roanoke Valley’s new Panera Bread is off to a successful start, and its first-week sales appear to prove it.
Sales during the bakery and deli chain’s first week surpassed all other Panera Breads nationally, which total more than 950 locations, said Kelly Jackson, spokeswoman for Blue Ridge Bread, the franchise company that owns the Roanoke County Panera Bread and others in Virginia. The Roanoke County location opened on Electric Road, near Tanglewood Mall, on July 31.
Jackson would not release the store’s first-week sales total. And though she said her company expected the new location to have a large sales volume, it was surprised that the restaurant set a record.
“I really think that we fill a niche in Roanoke, as well as the location is great,” Jackson said.
Blue Ridge Bread will open its first Panera Bread in West Virginia soon, in Charles Town. After West Virginia, the company’s next Panera Bread will open in 2007 in Roanoke, adjacent to Valley View Mall.
Family Dollar wants to expand its presence in Roanoke.
According to plans filed in the city’s planning office, a 9,180-square-foot Family Dollar store is set to go up in an area near the intersection of Peters Creek Road and Shenandoah Avenue. The discount retailer that sells everything from paper towels to makeup would be adjacent to a Food Lion store in that area.
Plans also show several other new retailers that would to go up beside Family Dollar.
The timetable for construction and store openings is unknown.
There already are five Family Dollar locations in the Roanoke Valley, including one in Vinton. Family Dollar, based in Matthews, N.C., operates more than 6,100 stores in the United States.
A bank is tearing down one of its smaller local locations to build something new.
SunTrust Bank is planning to build a new branch in front of Crossroads Mall on Hershberger Road in Roanoke, said Patti Dickerson, a spokeswoman for SunTrust. But the branch will go up in the spot where a small, drive-through SunTrust now sits.
With the new branch, the bank wants to consolidate three of its locations near Crossroads. That means tearing down the drive-through branch to make way for the new and larger one, Dickerson said.
Once the new location is complete, SunTrust will close two area traditional branches, one at 1315 Hershberger Road and one at 5102 Williamson Road.
“It’s a high-traffic area,” Dickerson said. “We want to make sure we have an appropriate facility to best meet their [customers’] needs.”
The two larger branches will remain open while construction is under way on the new SunTrust, she said. It should open next spring.
