After leaving the restaurant business for 13 years and coming back into the industry through the purchase of Sonny Williams’ Steak Room, Andy Agar is working to create a destination for parties and corporate events.
Agar is in the middle of a three-phase process to update the space, the first phase of which was completed at the end of March. The second and third phases will be completed within the next year, he said.
Agar founded Sonny Williams in 1999 and sold the business in 2002. Last year, he left his job in the financial services industry and, along with a group of investors, bought the River Market District restaurant in October.
“I don’t consider this a job; I’m having the best time of my life right now,” Agar said. “I love people coming in and it’s a privilege to be here.”
Since October, there have been several aesthetic changes to the restaurant. The biggest: a new private party room that can be divided into two spaces.
“For the last 17 years when someone called and wanted to do a private party we could say, ‘We have a private area but we don’t have a private room,'” Agar said. “They would be entertaining in the main dining area or off in the corner.”
Each of the new private dining rooms can seat about 20 people; together they seat about 55.
Agar painted and installed new woodwork throughout the building. Old artwork has also been replaced with new pieces by local artists and new draperies were installed.
Through it all, the restaurant remained open. The next phase will revamp the entryway; phase three will be complete whatever didn’t get done during phase one and two, he said. That includes repainting the rest of the space and other finishing touches.
The restaurant also invested in new audiovisual equipment, including three monitors that can be moved to any part of the restaurant. Agar said a technician is available at every party to help with the equipment and, if necessary, operate it during a presentation.
The company has also hired Olivia Perry as an event coordinator. Her job dedicated to party planning and helping with corporate events.
“We have approximately 21 parties already booked for April and May,” Agar said. “It’s considerably more than before. We just didn’t have that ability to give you that privacy. We were able to get back to people who called us and said they needed private rooms. The word is starting to get around that Sonny’s has remodeled.”
According to Agar, the restaurant’s sales are up about 10 percent compared to last year.
The restaurant continues to offer free valet parking but has also added a new offering: free Uber rides.
“We’ll provide you an Uber driver to bring you down and take you home at our cost,” Agar said. “We needed to get people in the city to come down and have dinner with us.”
Despite the changes, Agar said the heart of Sonny Williams’ hasn’t changed.
“We haven’t changed much,” Agar said. “We haven’t changed the way we cook our steaks, we have waiters who have been with us since the very beginning, and the front of the house and the back of the house [have] been there all these years and really learned to work together.”
In 2014, the restaurant reported $1.5 million in revenue, up about 3 percent from 2013, according to figures obtained from the Little Rock Advertising & Promotion Commission. Those totals do not include alcohol sales.
Those numbers are the latest available since the Legislature last year exempted local option taxes, also called hotel-motel-restaurant or HMR taxes, from the state’s Freedom of Information Act.
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