Mark Hufford, owner and operator of the Chick-Fil-A in Bentonville said many employees of the Wal-Mart home office walk to his store for lunch. |
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If eating habits are telling, then people in Bentonville are always on the go.
Four of the top 10 restaurants in Bentonville for the first two quarters are fast food concepts. Nos. 5 and 6 are in-store delis at the Wal-Mart Supercenter and Sam's Club. In fact, there are only two restaurants in Bentonville's top 10 that don't classify as fast food: Lin's Garden Chineese restaurant and the Shogun Steakhouse of Japan.
The Chick-fil-A restaurant on South Walton Boulevard in Bentonville had $1.2 million in sales from Jan. 1 through June 30 this year. Percent increase numbers for the Chick-fil-A are skewed, however, because it opened in April 2008.
In Fayetteville, the top restaurant by sales also beat Bentonville's No. 1. The Olive Garden Italian restaurant on North Mall Avenue had $1.85 million in sales for the first two quarters.
The rankings are based on a 1 percent hotel-motel-restaurant, or "hamburger," tax collected by the cities of Bentonville and Fayetteville for their respective Advertising & Promotion Commissions. Neither Rogers nor Springdale collect the tax, therefore sales numbers for restaurants in those towns cannot be reliably reported. The Business Journal compared sales of restaurants in Bentonville and Fayetteville for the first two quarters of 2009 with the first two quarters of 2008.
The No. 2 dining spot in Fayetteville was the Golden Corral with $1.78 million in sales for the first two quarters. The Golden Corral was No. 1 in sales for the first half of 2008.
Only three of Fayetteville's top 10 restaurants are considered fast food, with most of the others classified as sit-down casual.
Mark Hufford is the owner-operator of the Chick-fil-A in Bentonville. He said the store does most of its traffic during breakfast and lunch on the weekdays. The restaurant's proximity to the Wal-Mart Stores Inc. home office drives that business.
Hufford said the industry average for drive-thru traffic is about 60 percent of business, but one recent mid-week lunch rush at his store showed about twice as many patrons chose to stay in their cars.
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