Youree's newest restaurant set to open next week

Athletes often look for opportunities that will keep them occupied long after they’ve left the game. Some go into coaching, some join the media and others invest in businesses.

The new Walk-On’s Bistreaux & Bar opening on Youree Drive hopes to be the latest of those success stories.

History tells us sports stars’ restaurants are no more successful than other establishments. They all have the same requirements for success, including quality food, service and location.

The list of athletes who entered the restaurant business is a mile long. Former players like John Elway, Arnold Palmer, Mike Ditka, Greg Norman and Wayne Gretzky found success and have locations still operating today. There’s also those who have tried and failed, including Dwyane Wade, Jim McMahon, Hulk Hogan and Michael Jordan.

Then there’s Brandon Landry, co-founder of Walk-On’s Enterprises. He and his former partner, Jack Warner, were walk-ons with the LSU basketball team in the late 1990s when they came up with the idea for the restaurant — also inspiring its name. If you were an athlete or fan of the Tigers, you quickly became familiar with the original location right around the corner from LSU’s campus in Baton Rouge.

Landry now owns five restaurants in four different cities and launched a franchise company last year, allowing others to purchase the right to use the restaurant’s brand name and successful business model. That’s when local restaurant industry veteran Chris McJunkins jumped at the idea of bringing it to the northern part of the state.

“I liked the environment for a sports-themed restaurant,” McJunkins said. “And then when the food came out, the presentation and the flavor, just kind of shocked me. You don’t expect to get that kind of food in a sports restaurant.”

But before McJunkins added more to his plate, already the owner and operator of Catina Laredo and Windrush Grill, he needed investors. He targeted former LSU football star and Evangel Christian Academy standout Jacob Hester and former LSU baseball player and Airline High School graduate Todd Walker as part of a larger investment group. Hester became a regular at the Baton Rouge location during his time as a Tiger and Walker made it a regular stop on his visits back to LSU. When approached with the opportunity, it didn’t take much selling.

“It was really a no-brainer for me,” Walker said.

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The Shreveport Walk-On’s is located at 7031 Youree Drive and is planning its grand opening for Oct. 12. There will be seating for roughly 260 guests and the restaurant will provide 170-180 full-time jobs to the area. But with the name value of Hester and Walker, they have plans for much more than just a restaurant with good food.

“It might be an opportunity to bring some athletes to the area that might not have come otherwise,” Walker said. “I personally see opportunities to have signings on Saturday for current and former baseball players that I know and other things like that.”

There’s also plans already in place for the restaurant to host a weekly show on Thursday’s during the football season with Hester and area sports talk show host Tim Fletcher. The other Walk-On’s locations have had success with similar events in the past, hosting LSU football coach Les Miles’ radio show at the Baton Rouge location and the same for other schools in Lafayette, New Orleans and Houma. It’s just one of the many things Walk-On’s likes to do to endear itself to the community and get involved in the local sports scene.

“It’s not your typical sports bar because of the food and the type of menu that we serve and also the type of crowd that we attract,” Landry said. “It’s not your typical beer-drinking, wing-eating sports bar. It’s a place that has baseball teams and soccer teams that come in after their games. A place that families come in after church on Sundays. It really is a place for everyone.”

They’re already building their brand through the high school sports scene with advertisements on the dugouts at Captain Shreve’s baseball field. Gators baseball coach and athletic director Todd Sharp, who was Walker’s high school teammate, said the team’s booster club came up with the idea, but he’s included in those who are looking forward to the restaurant’s opening.

“The people that are involved in this restaurant are as important as the food and the actually store itself,” Walker said. “That’s what’s going to be cool about out.”

Landry doesn’t know how the franchising will work out, but he’s excited about the names that have given their support, both monetarily and publicly. He believes the restaurant’s food-first focus has made it a business model that can keep him and his investors in the game for a long time to come.

And apparently other athletes agree.

In May, Saints quarterback Drew Brees joined the Walk-On’s Enterprises team as a minority owner of the parent company. Brees also owns several Jimmy John’s franchises in the New Orleans area, but it was the opportunity to invest in a local company, and one that has its eyes on expansion, that attracted him to Walk-On’s.

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“I feel like that was a huge draw to me,” Brees said at a press conference in May. “We’re going to be part of a team that can do some unique and special things in the years to come.”

Within a month of Brees joining the company, Walk-On’s announced plans for its first location outside of Louisiana, in the quarterback’s home state of Texas.

“It’s kind of flattering knowing that people have the interest in our brand and really want it,” Landry said. “When you’re getting going, especially at 21, 22, 23 years old, your goal at the beginning is just to make a living. We always thought we had a good idea and a good concept, but to think 12 years in now that it would be expanding and having the interest from the type of people that we’re getting, I definitely didn’t ever imagine this.”

Former Washington Redskins quarterback Joe Theismann once said, “It’s the dumbest thing anybody could do to think they could operate a restaurant as an athlete.”

So when someone approached the quarterback in 1975 about opening a restaurant and using his name in exchange for 10 percent stock in the ownership, Theismann was more than happy to just show up as more of an attraction than an actual owner. Which is why he’s invested in at least five restaurants around the D.C. area and hasn’t tried to operate any of them.

Walker will take a similar belief with him to Walk-On’s and let the experts handle the restaurant side of things, but the 12-year MLB utility player does believe in the value of athletes getting involved in something after their career.

“You always want to feel a little bit of pride in something,” Walker said. “Jacob and myself, and all the other guys who didn’t play an actual sport, are very prideful of this restaurant. We all know how hugely successful it is in Baton Rouge and New Orleans and Houma and Lafayette, so I think there’s a sense of pride in a way to kind of call a restaurant home — especially considering it’s sports related.

“We’ll all have a lot of fun with it,” Walker added. “We got one of the best guys in charge we think in the area in Chris McJunkins, so it’s in good hands. He makes all the decisions, so I think it’s just going to be fun watching the show go on.”

Twitter: @Connelly_Times

Shreveport’s Walk-On’s

Grand opening: Monday

Location: 7031 Youree Drive

Seating: 260

Employment: 170-180