Texas barbecue restaurant gains foothold in Wasilla

In the parking lot of the Wasilla Fred Meyer stands an unassuming little trailer with an attached lean-to sporting not much more than a logo and a couple of neon signs that say "open."

Inside the lean-to, you'll find customers standing in line for barbecue brisket, chicken or ribs that they'll take home wrapped in butcher paper.

Many customers at Wayne's Original Texas Bar-B-Que already know the company is planning to build a sit-down restaurant in the same parking lot next spring. Wayne Bond, the Anchorage-based entrepreneur behind the fledgling food stand, likes to talk about that. He also likes his employees to talk about it because it fits so neatly into his plans.

"We don't call it a test market," said Bond. "We call it introducing our food to the market -- and it's profitable." It's also sort of a year-long advertisement that Valley customers don't just see, but smell and taste months before the April ground-breaking of the new Wayne's store.

If all goes well for Bond, the trailer in Wasilla is the precursor to more than just another restaurant for the Valley. Bond plans to make his Texas-style barbecue restaurants famous throughout the Western states. He's founded an Alaska company to develop stores in Anchorage, Wasilla and Fairbanks, a Texas-based company that controls the rights to the chain, and a Colorado company that mirrors the Alaska one and is sniffing around for locations to develop in that state.

An accountant by trade, Bond calls himself a "hybrid-Texan" born in Kansas, but his experience with chain restaurants came during Alaska's 1980s growth spurt. Bond bought into a small company that ran two Taco Bell fastfood restaurants in Anchorage.

Bond said those early years as an accountant-for-hire taught him a lot about management styles and business strategy.

"Being a CPA can help you about do anything," he said.

Bond expanded the Alaska Taco Bell franchisee, Denali Foods Inc., to six Alaska stores in about four years. In the late '80s, Bond sold Denali Foods to his management team, which was then led by the late Bill Figueroa. Denali Foods has 14 stores in Alaska, employs 350 to 450 people depending on the season and once operated in Washington state as well.

Denali Foods President Dale Martens is a Figueroa protegŽ. Martens never worked directly with Bond, but said Bond's experience as an Alaskan franchisee should be a valuable asset to the Wayne's chain.

"He'll have the advantage over somebody who had not been through it," Martens said.

That's because Alaska chain restaurant licensees have to account for things such as higher wages, a seasonal economy and longer supply lines.

"The internal systems are the same," Martens said. "Getting the food to the counter -- that doesn't change. But we do have to make adjustments to the general systems."

Which translates into a management style Martens called "very hands-on." Denali Foods is frequently recognized by Taco Bell as a leading operator, and Martens said it takes part in a Taco Bell mentor program for new licensees.

Just as Bond's experience crunching numbers for clients provided a window into general business strategies, his experience with Alaska Taco Bells gave him a window into the general systems involved in building a restaurant chain and designing systems for future licensees.

Bond has spent years developing his plans and negotiating partnerships to get the chain started. Bond has a sauce bottler in Texas, an oven builder in Canada and a supply of live oak from the Texas Hill Country to fuel his fire. All of these things are essential to running the restaurant, and Bond has researched each of them.

"We found the best cookers available -- we call 'em cookers, not ovens," Bond said.

"You have to choose a wood with broad appeal," he says of the live oak.

Incidentally, live oak gets its name from the fact that it has green leaves all year long, and the Texas style is to smoke meat with dry spices rubbed in -- in Texas the sauce is served on the side. Bond claims live oak has milder smoke than mesquite, and it won't upstage the flavor of the rubbed-in spices.

Wayne's has one store in Anchorage and two more catering trailers similar to the one parked in Wasilla that work picnics and parties around the state.

Bond said the most important skill he brings with him from the Taco Bell experience is careful site selection. He calls the Intersection of the Palmer-Wasilla and Parks highways in Wasilla the Valley's "A" location. This is particularly important to Wayne's, which Bond said will rely on high volume for success.

"Every aspect of any business will benefit from high volume," he said.

Bond said entrepreneurs who start with poor site selection often end up on the defensive, making cuts to accommodate less business than they planned for. Those cuts end up lowering the quality of the goods and services. It's a slippery slope, and Bond hopes to avoid it by selecting high-volume locations in the first place.

"When you get high volume, you can start curing all of your problems with the labor and everything else," Bond said. "When you get into a substandard site, then you'll run into problems."