From Food Truck to Brick and Motar

april • may 2017

issue #4

LEARN SERIES latest news from HFA

Big Rub Urban Eatery: From Food Truck to Brick and Mortar

by Melissa L. Jones

BIG RUB URBAN EATERY: FROM FOOD TRUCK TO BRICK AND MORTAR

by Melissa L. Jones

What happens when the owner of a popular food truck gets an invitation to open a restaurant inside the store of the largest internationally-recognized retailer?

That question became a reality for Mark Poole, founder of the Big Rub BBQ food truck in 2011, a food vendor on wheels who specialized in catering and event business before Walmart came calling.

Big Rub BBQ evolved into Big Rub Urban Eatery, or BRUE, which resides today inside the Walmart Supercenter in southern Rogers, Arkansas.

The reimage, rebrand, remodel journey wasn’t without its challenges. With the help of HFA’s design team, Poole and his two sons took their business from a food truck to a full brand including a restaurant, catering and a line of sauces and spice rubs.

REIMAGE Mark Poole and his sons, Jordan and Chad, didn’t have experience in the restaurant business prior to opening their first food truck. Nevertheless, they had an idea of what they wanted to do and how they wanted to do it. “We wanted to prove our concept on a truck with a low budget,” Mark said.

They set up their small food truck on the Bentonville Square, and it eventually grew to include several food trucks and a catering business. Soon, Walmart called through their local vendor program. They wanted to take the business from food truck to brick and mortar. The Pooles suddenly needed design and brand ideas.

At that time, HFA in Bentonville was designing the renovations for the Walmart Supercenter prototype, and they asked HFA to work with Mark on a tenant-fill project.

As it turned out, the team was very familiar with BRUE’s humble beginnings and culture.

The project included several challenges. With a shoestring budget and limited experience, the Pooles had a patchwork of corporate identity. There was also a desire to invoke the company’s beginnings and take into account the reality of a food-truck operation.

The idea was to bring that experience not only to the existing customers who would visit, but also to new local customers who had never used the food truck business.

The design had to meet Walmart’s expectations for a food vendor located adjacent to the entrance to what would soon be one of their flagship store designs.

The Walmart store prototype incorporated new technologies and fresh foods, so the look and feel of the store moved toward a clean, modern design with an urban feel. The Big Rub design followed with a modern, urban feel.

REBRAND

The HFA design team started from the beginning, researching and analyzing the company’s food trucks and locations, as well as its limited branding of t-shirts, advertising and company logo.

HFA presented the owners with a full branding package, which included a big change for the company – a new name. Big Rub BBQ became Big Rub Urban Eatery, or BRUE. The branding package also included colors associated with their brand and an updated logo with the new acronym. The new name would represent the umbrella company for not only the restaurant but also the food trucks, the catering business and the planned lines of sauces and spice rubs.

The foundation of the branding was in the logo. The flame, the stars, the “Big Rub” and the circle around it were all the main portion of the branding. From there anything else could be branded simply by changing the bottom portion of the logo to reflect the product.

So whether looking at the food truck, the restaurant, or the spice rub “Big Rub” will always be visible, even when the bottom portion changes.

The consistency is the reason for creating a branding identity, and it’s vital if that company plans to expand or add products. The branding helps customers identify the company, even if they’re in a different location.

Once the branding identity was created and the package was laid out, the next step was to translate the new brand into the physical location through restaurant design and construction.

“Our desire was to give the space an urban theme that built off our food truck heritage. Think of it as a food truck, indoors.” - Mark Poole By combining the branding package with the company’s food truck history, HFA created an experience of dining outside a food truck but with the comfort and convenience of a brick-and-mortar interior.

The rebranding included a basic color palette of primary, secondary and accent colors that would be used consistently throughout the company, from restaurant interior colors to rub and sauce labels. In the restaurant, primary colors of red, white and black were used on the walls. Gray secondary colors also came from the new branding palette, while the yellow accent color gave a little extra pop to the overall design.

A materials palette was also created. Materials in the design included polished concrete floors, exposed brick, stainless steel and reclaimed-wood wainscoting.

Subway tiles in the brand’s red, white and black colors were included, offering another option for décor in future restaurants. Furnishings ranged from hand-made and painted wood picnic benches and galvanized pipe railings to modern café chairs and stools around wood-and-metal tables. Red, industrial pendant lights hang over the tables near the entry. Flat-screen monitors display advertising, the food menu and daily specials.

REMODEL The original plan was to work with Mark Poole’s truck fabricators to create a representation of the existing food truck. The idea was to cut the food truck down the middle and fasten it to the main wall, where the truck would serve as the ordering counter for the restaurant. Logistics created several problems, from the out-of-reach height of the ordering counter to the lack of ADA compliance. In the end, HFA created a design that gives a familiar feel of ordering from a food truck, but in a way that was much better (and shorter) for the customer. Part of the solution was to create an open-concept kitchen that allowed customers to see their food being prepared in a state-ofthe-art, stainless steel facility by barbecue experts.

Once everything was worked out, HFA generated a 3D model and interior renderings to determine if any revisions would be needed and to obtain Walmart’s approval. After that, construction began on the project. The process, from conception to completion, took about 75 days.

A few changes were made to the design along the way.

In one case, a change made didn’t work as planned, so owners returned to the original concept for a solution.

The original package called for a chalkboard wall near the entrance and set back to the right of the ordering counter.

Initially, the restaurant opened with the monitors in this space to display the menu. But the location disrupted traffic flow and made it harder to see the menu from the ordering counter. By returning to the branding package, the owners were able to resurrect the original design of a chalkboard wall that would offer a larger menu space that would be easier to see while standing in line to order.

The Pooles had an artist friend add their menu, complete with drawings of some of their most popular dishes, on the chalkboard wall. The feature wall fits in perfectly with the restaurant’s design, providing an added visual element above one of the elevated picnic tables and barstool seating.

The final restaurant design kept with the feel of BRUE’s roots – eating a delicious barbecue meal at a picnic table outside its food truck – while maintaining the comforts of an indoor, dine-in restaurant.

It was an immediate hit.

“We have set the record for the highest amount of sales in the first month for any food vendor located in a Walmart!”

Mark Poole exclaimed during a follow-up visit shortly after the restaurant opened. “Working with you all [at HFA] has been amazing. Take a look. We did not deviate from your design one bit!”

The owners weren’t the only ones who liked the new restaurant’s design. “Our customers seem to really like it as well,” Jordan said.

The design concept is expected to serve as a template for future locations and products, when they come. In the meantime, BRUE has enjoyed its first full year as a brickand-mortar location, and the Pooles are looking forward to many more.

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