Two new eateries at Southridge.

From the Charleston Daily Mail:

Charleston Daily Mail

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Southridge gets
2 new restaurants

George Hohmann
Daily Mail business editor



Thursday July 20, 2006
A deli, a barbecue restaurant and an expanded cell phone store are preparing to open at Southridge Centre.

The deli, Sabatino Bros., is set to open in the late afternoon Monday, said John Kaiser. Kaiser and John Smallridge are owners of the deli, which is the first of its kind. Kaiser and Smallridge also are partners in the Steak Escape chain of restaurants.

Sabatino Bros. will offer cheese steaks, but "we're going to hand-slice black Angus in the store," Kaiser said. "That's going to bring such a flavor to our cheese steak, people are going to go wild about it. Ours will be a more authentic Philly style."

Kaiser said the menu of 20 to 30 sandwiches is based on sandwiches he and Smallridge have discovered during their travels. "We'll have several additional subs like the Southridge, which will have fresh turkey breast, stuffing, cranberry sauce and mayo," he said. "It tastes just like Thanksgiving dinner."

Another sandwich will consist of hummus flatbread with carrots, cucumbers, tomatoes and lettuce.

"We'll have no fried food at all," Kaiser said. The restaurant will have salads and there's a kids' menu.

The restaurant is in front of the Big Sandy Superstore and next to MaggieMoo's Ice Cream and Treatery. Sabatino Bros. will have about 50 seats. It will serve breakfast.

Starting Tuesday, "We're looking at opening as early as 6 a.m. and staying open until 11 p.m., probably until midnight on Fridays and Saturdays," Kaiser said. "There's a tremendous movie crowd out here around midnight.

"We want to be a neighborhood deli style restaurant, where people can come in and just relax," Kaiser said. "We hope some of the people who work the early morning and late night shifts out here will want a place to sit down and relax before they head in to work or head home."

The restaurant will employ 20 to 25 people. Kaiser said the restaurant is still hiring and is offering starting pay as high as $9 an hour.

Asked how the restaurant got its name, Kaiser said he and Smallridge played around with several names "and this is the one we liked."

Famous Dave's Legendary Pit Bar-B-Que is moving into the space formerly occupied by Char House. Mark Donahue, one of the owners, said Sept. 15 is the targeted opening date.

Donahue said he, his brother Tim and their father, Rex Donahue, own the Famous Dave's franchise rights in West Virginia. "We have to build a minimum of three restaurants and we're looking for five or six," he said. The Donahues operate under the corporate name Almost Heaven Ribs Inc. They opened their first restaurant, in Barboursville, last December.

The Char House space has been vacant since early last year.

Cingular Wireless is taking over the building at Southridge's front entrance that was formerly occupied by A&W Rootbeer and Long John Silver's.

"We are so excited about this," said Alexa Kaufman, Cingular's regional director of public relations. "We're going to put big orange awnings out front so you'll be really able to see it."

Cingular has had a store at Southridge back near Big Sandy for almost five years. Even though that location is a little off the beaten path, "it is one of the top-performing stores in the Charleston area," Kaufman said. "So we have high hopes for the new location."

The move will triple Cingular's store size at Southridge.

Tim Bondurant is manager of the existing store and also will manage the new store. His staff of 10 also will move over to the new store. "A lot of the folks have been there four or five years," Kaufman said. "It's a topnotch team."

Cingular plans to open at the new location in early September. The high-visibility spot has been vacant since A&W and Long John Silver's left one year ago.

"The tenant mix at Southridge is very strong," said Georgette Rashid George, a spokeswoman for RidgeLine Inc. "We're excited about the expansion of Cingular into its own building. And we're excited about all of the new tenants coming in."

RidgeLine Inc. is the landowner at Southridge Centre and manages a portion of the shopping complex.

The deli, barbecue restaurant and expanded cellphone store aren't the only new businesses at Southridge. Sporting goods retailer Gander Mountain Co. is remodeling most of the former Lowe's Home Improvement Warehouse building at Southridge and turning it into a store for outdoor enthusiasts.

Contact writer George Hohmann at 348-4836.