Spaulé Restaurant

Monthly Newsletter and Low Turnover Key to Success

Spaulé Restaurant owners Scott Swander and Paul Novicky trace their professional involvement to Alouette’s French Continental Restaurant, where Swander was the maitre d’ and Novicky was executive chef from 1990-1994.

The two, restaurateurs at heart, became such close friends that Swander was Novicky’s best man.

“We hit it off in a friendship and eventually put together a business plan,” Swander said. “Then we looked for ways to get money together.”

They used 25 percent of their Spaulé stock as collateral on a five-year small-business loan, which they repaid in two years. Novicky and Swander had other partners when they opened the business in 1995, they bought out the others after only two months in business.

The location was a foregone conclusion, since the two wanted the restaurant in the Heights neighborhood of Little Rock.

“We knew a lot of the customers in the area and we felt that we could draw the people from out west and downtown to a central location,” Swander said.

Spaulé’s average annual growth rate is about 10 percent. But unless the restaurant expands or raises prices, Swander said it has likely reached its plateau with food and alcohol revenue, which last year was $970,480.

“Over the past six years, so many restaurants have opened. We’re all competing for the same dollar and we’re fighting for those diners,” he said.

Spaulé, with 16 employees, sets itself apart with a new menu every month, monthly wine-maker dinners and a direct-mailing list of more than 3,000 customers.

“On our newsletter, we have a calendar showing menu changes, nights the restaurant is closed for private parties, the wine list and wine-maker dinner nights,” Swander said.

Most important, the newsletter provides contact with each customer each month so that Spaulé is foremost on the customers mind when it comes to fine dining.

“It is the only advertising we do,” Swander said. “So far, it is effective.”