By DANA HEDGEPETH, The Washington Post
Web-posted: 8:32 a.m. June 1, 2000
Pete Plamadon Jr. and his brother Jim have kept the products that gave the Roy Rogers restaurant chain its reputation, but they've upgraded. The sons are building a new 3,700-square-foot restaurant in Frederick, Md., not as a "fast-food" place, but rather a "fast casual dining experience."
To that end, there's a 20-person, glass-enclosed meeting room for executives who want to have "an off-site meeting" over, say, a bucket of chicken. The space is where most fast-food places put an indoor playground for kids. Instead of plastic balls in this closed-off area, there's a TV and VCR for demonstrations -- or the occasional birthday party or basketball team reviewing its last game, said Jim Plamondon, a 36-year-old lawyer who joined the company five years ago.
A few feet away from the meeting room sits a small section with three pay phones and a $3,000 Internet kiosk, known as the "Club Elite" model, for diners to log on and check e-mail or surf the Web, all neatly situated behind a paneled wall with tables nearby. They made a deal with a California-based company to put the machine in and share in the user fees (the machine takes credit cards or dollar bills).
"That's exactly the kind of customer we want to attract," said Jim Plamondon, pointing to two men in suits leaving the new restaurant in a sport-utility vehicle.
Whether they will attract crowds of business executives at their newest location remains to be seen. It sits across from a strip mall and will soon have town houses and condominiums in its back yard. There are several companies in the area that are expanding and adding employees.
For now, most of the customers are construction workers from the nearby housing development. Jim bought a boot scraper online so they won't track dirt in the store on his gray tiles.
They don't offer 99-cent cheeseburger deals. Instead there are higher-end items such as the $4.89 crab cake sandwich -- a gimmick the Plamondons claim credit for starting last summer at one of their restaurants. The plastic toys in the kids' meals -- a hefty expense and one that requires promotion connections -- have been replaced with wooden nickels that can be redeemed for ice cream cones.
For a healthier touch, the Plamondons hired a food consultant to spice up the old side salad they used to offer. Now there's an oriental-style, complete with bits of chicken, a chicken Caesar salad and a chef's salad with hunks of ham and cheese.
"We're trying to be between Burger King and Applebee's," said Pete Plamondon Jr., 40. "You get high-quality food quickly without having to leave a tip."