By Laura Bailey
When John Thompson saw the vacant five-story warehouse on Bellevue on Detroit's east side, he envisioned lines of customers snaking through the lobby and out the door, waiting patiently for a steaming plate of soul food.
When Patrick Harrington saw the same building, he saw a rotting, filthy structure in a weedy, hardscrabble neighborhood that couldn't attract the foot traffic necessary to support a restaurant.
But Harrington wrote Thompson a loan anyway.
And lines of customers wait for tables at what is now Southern Fires, which sits north of Jefferson Avenue near the Belle Isle Bridge.
"It was a transaction we could get comfortable with because of his vision and his management ability, which was evidenced by a number of years of success in a very difficult industry," said Harrington, a loan officer in the Troy office of the small business lender Business Loan Express L.L.C.
Thompson, the former operator and part owner of Franklin Street Restaurant in Detroit, left in July 1999 to start Southern Fires. Thompson believes he's hit on a successful combination of comfort and trendiness that appeals to both the church crowd and diners stopping in before a night on the town. The first year he posted about $2.5 million in sales; this year he says he is on pace to reach $4 million and plans to renovate the second floor to accommodate larger parties.
Thompson acknowledges that Detroit diners are a fickle crowd. Chains don't do well here, and "too much advertising can hurt you," he said. Word of mouth and customer loyalty are key.
Indeed, aside from a couple of radio promotions, Thompson didn't advertise before Southern Fires opened in November 2001. Yet that first day customers "just started pulling into" Southern Fires' gated parking lot.
Thompson's business model is simple - make people feel safe in a nice atmosphere with good food - and it resonates with customers.
No entree costs more than $10, and the restaurant serves no alcohol and closes at 9 p.m. sharp.
"If I served alcohol in here, it would ruin my business," Thompson said. "The young partiers would be in here."
Patrick Coleman, owner of the Southfield soul food restaurant Beans & Cornbread, said a liquor license can be a drawback because diners would dawdle over drinks. And quick table turnover is what makes his restaurant profitable, Coleman said.
The size and trendy interior give Southern Fires a high-quality feel, as intended. At 280 seats and 20,000 square feet, Southern Fires is large for a soul food restaurant, most of which are mom-and-pop kitchens that might seat a couple of dozen customers.
"If you see any restaurants this large in Detroit, it's a high-end restaurant with alcohol, and it will be downtown," Thompson said.
While Thompson has mustered the nerve to take a weekend off occasionally, he still doesn't want to leave the restaurant for a week. That's an improvement over three years ago, when he and his family worked nonstop to do as much of the building renovation as they could themselves.
Thompson said he bought the Bellevue building in 1995 because he liked it and envisioned a business there. While running Franklin Street, Thompson penned drawings of what he'd like the Bellevue building to become.
He left Franklin Street in the hands of partner Steve Radden in July 1999 and asked an architect to make blueprints of the restaurant he'd planned.
Less than three weeks later, he and his family began gutting the Bellevue building to prepare it for restoration.
Thompson, whose family owns Detroit-based Thompson & Thompson Plumbing, said he doesn't know how people finish projects if they don't do some of the work themselves.
Having help with the gutting, heating and cooling and other projects saved thousands of dollars, Thompson said. But until the small-business loan came in, Thompson was limited in how much work he could afford to do.
So while he worked on his building, Thompson worked hard with Harrington to put together financing. In November 1999, he secured a loan for $250,000, plus a $100,000 loan from his parents, his savings and a $25,000 loan from his sister.
"The day the loan came through we just took off," Thompson recalled. "That was a tricky time. I never want to do that again, I'll tell you that."
He took one day off to celebrate. Then, back to work.
Because Franklin had a 21/2-hour Sunday wait when Thompson left, he decided to make Southern Fires twice the size.
He didn't consider that the lines might be just as long at his restaurant, but they are, with waits of up to two hours on Sundays. The wait typically isn't longer than 15 minutes the other six days, though, Thompson said.
Most of the food takes two to three hours to cook. A downstairs kitchen handles the prepping and precooking. The upstairs kitchen handles cook-to-order work.
Thompson's biggest problem now is growing pains and where to find 80 to 90 employees to give the kind of customer service necessary to cultivate loyalty.
The casinos can pay $8 to $12 an hour to servers plus tips, compared with $2.65 plus tips at most restaurants, said Marcellus Lott, manager of the 130-seat Franklin Street and Radden's nephew.
Jerry McVety of McVety & Associates, a food-service and hospitality consultant in Farmington Hills, said the survival rate for independent restaurants is about 50 percent.
"The life expectancy is directly related to the ability of the operator to be able to meet the needs of its customer," McVety said.
Source: Crain's Detroit Business | 
