Bar Louie

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Eat. Drink. Be Happy.

Bar LouieBar Louie is an upscale neighborhood bar and eatery known for its inviting atmosphere, handcrafted cocktails, featured selection of local and regional beers with over 20 taps, high quality wines, and robust menu filled with flavor packed dishes. Since 1990, our loyal guests continue to return to Bar Louie as a place they feel comfortable and at home with great food, beverage, and service, no matter the occasion.

The tenets of the Original Gastrobar
Great drinks, chef-inspired food, and awesome service in a comfortable atmosphere where you are encouraged to relax and hang out. With Bar Louie, no two bars are going to be exactly the same. We listen to our neighborhoods​ and let them shape us, not the other way around. That's what makes Bar Louie special. No corners cut​. No excuses. It's not always the easiest way to do things, but it's the right way. Because if you're not going to give people something special, why bother at all? So whether you're looking for good food, a refreshing cocktail, or just conversation, Bar Louie has you covered.

Our New Menu Items Have Arrived!
Get ready to indulge! We've added some seriously delicious dishes to our menu that highlight our love for top-notch ingredients and bold flavors. From Bar Bites to Burgers, there's plenty to get excited about.

• NEW Bar Bites: Buffalo Chips, Black Bean Hummus, Thai Crispy Calamari, Chicken Tenders
• NEW Main Plate: Crispy Chicken Tenders
• NEW Craft Burgers: Mushroom Swiss, Truffle Crunch, Chef's Burger, Chipotle BBQ, Bacon Cheddar, Blazin' Burger, The Big Louie
• NEW Flatbread: Hot Honey Bacon
• NEW Scratch Built Sandwiches: Grilled Chicken Club, Reuben, Kickin' Fried Chicken, Patty Melt
• NEW Sliders: Nashville Hot Chicken Tenders
• NEW Wings and Tenders Sauces: Chipotle BBQ, Thai Sweet & Spicy, Hot Honey, Nashville Hot Rub
• NEW Signature Martinis: Purple Reign, Wake Up Call, Midnight Berry
• NEW Louie's Cocktails & Spiked Desserts: Pink Flamingo Paloma, Spicy Watermelon Fresca, Honey Bourbon Sour, Whole Latta Latte

https://www.barlouie.com

Bar Louie Restaurants

WIKIPEDIABar Louie
American bar and restaurant chain founded in 1990.

• Bar Louie serves food, beer, and cocktails, from locations predominantly located in urban and suburban markets.
• As of 2022 there are approximately 69 locations.
• Bar Louie is headquartered in Addison, Texas.
• Tom Fricke is chief executive officer.
• Sun Capital Partners is a major investor in the company dating back to June 2010.

On January 27, 2020, Bar Louie filed for bankruptcy and closed 38 locations. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Bar Louie closed an additional 22 locations.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bar_Louie_Restaurants

The Untold Truth Of Bar Louie

MashedBar Louie
To paraphrase Mark Twain - or whoever it was that said it - reports of Bar Louie's death are greatly exaggerated (via Dictionary.com). Did it suffer one of the worst years of any restaurant chain ever in 2020, closing nearly half its stores and declaring bankruptcy? Yes. Did it close so many stores that people left without one nearby may have rightfully assumed it had gone the way of Bennigan's? Also yes. But lest we forget, Bar Louie is from Chicago. And if there's one thing a city full of Cubs and Bears fans knows how to do, it's deal with disappointment and press on.

Like a Chicagoan shedding their winter bod for beach season, Bar Louie has trimmed down considerably. The newer, sleeker version has risen from bankruptcy, and with the help of a couple of virtual concepts, some new art, and a couple of inventive chefs, is poised to return to its former late-night glory. But how did Bar Louie go from neighborhood staple to COVID-era catastrophe, and back again? Read on to learn the history of Bar Louie, and how it's looking forward to a better-than-expected future.

Bar Louie was born in Chicago in 1990
According to the Chicago Tribune, its very first location opened in 1990 in Chicago's Near North neighborhood and immediately gained critical acclaim for its quality food and corner tavern atmosphere. The originators were Roger Greenfield and Ted Kasmir, longtime Chicagoland restaurateurs who wanted to open a more homey-feeling establishment.

The original concept was based on big portions and eccentric attire
Anyone who's ever stopped into Bar Louie for a quick after-work drink that led to two drinks and then a hamburger knows the portions here are no joke.

Beyond giving their customers enough food to last for a week, Bar Louie also encouraged their employees to show their freaky side long before tatted-up chefs and pink-haired servers were the norm. "In the '90s and early 2000s, tattoos were edgy, people didn't want to see piercings or colored hair," Cline told Mashed. "Bar Louie was on the front end of being inclusive, welcoming and appreciative of differences, and encouraged tattoos and piercings and colored hair in the early 2000s."

Bar Louie began expanding in 1998
The combination of big food and bigger personalities was a hit, and within a few years, Bar Louie outgrew its couple-dozen seats on Chicago Avenue. Eight years after opening its doors, Bar Louie began to spread throughout Chicagoland, reaching seven stores throughout the cities and suburbs, according to the Chicago Tribune.

Not satisfied to merely be a regional powerhouse, Roger Greenfield and Ted Kasmir set their sights outside Chicago. By the next decade, they expanded Bar Louie's reach throughout the country, ultimately reaching 44 restaurants by 2010. Their success caught the attention of some serious investors, and that year Greenfield and Kasmir sold the concept to Sun Capital Partners for an undisclosed amount of money. Sun Capital also began the franchising era of the company, which was integral to its growth during the years that followed.

With increased financial backing, the new owners of Bar Louie took the operation even wider, expanding to a peak of over 140 locations throughout the United States. While that number was impressive, it was ultimately not sustainable, and the overly-ambitious expansion led to serious problems.

Bar Louie grew a little too fast and brought in new management in 2018
Growing pains are tough, especially when you expand nearly fourfold in under a decade. By 2018, Bar Louie had pushed its numbers to 110 corporate-owned stores and 24 franchises spread across 26 different states, according to FSR magazine. Managing an operation that large proved tricky. While some locations were booming, others were not doing as well, and the have-nots were weighing down the haves.

Bar Louie brought in new CEO Tom Fricke to try and turn things around. The chain started implementing new features like the Louie Nation Loyalty Program for frequent guests. They also added covered patios to increase all-weather outdoor dining capacity. In about three-quarters of the corporate-owned stores the program was working, according to FSR. The problem was, Sun Capital didn't have quite enough ... capital to make the changes everywhere. So while the changes worked, not enough restaurants were able to implement them.

In 2020, Bar Louie declared bankruptcy
With sales in many restaurants still lagging, Bar Louie had some important decisions to make. According to FSR magazine, the chain's debts totaled about $110 million, while its assets amounted to as little as $50 million.

As part of the bankruptcy, Bar Louie closed 38 corporate-owned locations immediately, according to the Chicago Tribune. Those stores had seen sales decrease by 11% in the preceding year, and were an easy choice to be first on the chopping block.

Bar Louie shut a ton of locations in 2020
When it filed for bankruptcy in 2020, Bar Louie wasn't at its peak number of stores, but still boasted a robust 134 locations across 26 states, according to the Chicago Tribune. That year would be a veritable blood bath for Bar Louie, and by the time the dust had settled, 60 Bar Louies had shut their doors in just a year.

In June of 2020, Bar Louie came out of bankruptcy
In the midst of the entire world shutting down, somehow Bar Louie managed to crawl its way out of Chapter 11 bankruptcy less than six months after filing. The strategy of making the chain leaner had worked, and it didn't take Bar Louie long to find a bankruptcy buyer. According to an account of the bankruptcy in FSR magazine, on April 27 the chain got approval for sale to Antares Capital LP, who took on $82.5 million of Bar Louie's debt.

The new locations are getting a complete makeover
With a more streamlined lineup of stores and enough capital to implement changes across all locations, Bar Louie has now set out to modernize its sometimes-outdated restaurants. First among those projects: bringing the interiors squarely into the 2020s.

Bar Louie Marketing ManagerBefore, our artwork was black and white, and lackluster, and dated. It looked like 'Club Louie,'. Right now, we're working through renovations and bringing in artwork that reflects the craft.

- Bar Louie Marketing Manager Amanda Star Cline told Mashed

The craft of what, you ask? The craft of being a neighborhood bar, obviously. That includes paintings and photos that are big, sexy closeups of cocktails with dripping condensation. It means blueprints of popular bar tools, and images of classic bartending scenes. Gone are the days of nondescript twentysomethings dancing their way to bad decisions. In their place is a tribute to the ingredients that go into making Bar Louie a better chain restaurant.

Every Bar Louie looks different
Some chain restaurants trade on the feeling of home, ensuring that when you step into a Tony Roma's in Dubai, it looks exactly like one in suburban Cleveland. Bar Louie goes the other direction, and in its effort to create a neighborhood bar atmosphere, Bar Louie is the opposite of cookie-cutter.

Bar Louie crafts its menu depending on where it is
A major part of Bar Louie's strategy of differentiation is offering food in different markets that reflects what people in that area want to eat. It's more than just putting a Cuban sandwich on menus in Miami and offering crab cakes in Baltimore: As Bar Louie Marketing Manager Amada Star Cline told Mashed, it's about looking at local dietary preferences and developing the menus accordingly.

Bar Louie Marketing ManagerWe've got two powerhouse chefs who are really gutsy, so we have regional items ... in Coconut Creek, Florida, we'll have fresh shrimp tostadas. But in Perrysburg, Ohio, you know, we'll have steak and potato flatbread and a meatloaf stack.

- Amanda Star Cline

Menus still include some staples, though. For example, the Louie's Choice Cheeseburger is on menus nationwide.

Bar Louie did not offer third party delivery until recently
COVID-19 moved a lot of previously hesitant restaurants into the world of delivery. And despite obscene third-party app fees and the even-obscener amount of trash food delivery creates, Bar Louie ultimately got on board in 2020.

At the beginning of 2020, you couldn't get Bar Louie food on any delivery platform. Today, according to FSR magazine, you can find it on six. What's more, while not so long ago Bar Louie garnered none of its revenue from food delivery, today it accounts for nearly 15%. Some of that is thanks to its regular lineup of food. But like many food businesses in the last couple of years, Bar Louie also got into the world of ghost kitchens.

https://www.mashed.com/718458/the-untold-truth-of-bar-louie/