You Voted, Now We Ask How to Get Restaurants to Come to Montgomery

“What we do is when we see that there is interest in a particular restaurant chain for Montgomery, we work with whomever is recruiting them and most of your large developers have someone that is specializing in restaurant recruiting.”

Montgomery has about 12 large developers, including Aranov Realty and Jim Wilson and Associates. Developers are responsible for recruiting restaurants, though the city does help. Montgomery Mayor Todd Strange says a firm is used to collect data about the city.

“We’ve engaged them to give us a lot of data, population, average income per capita so that when the developers go and recruit the Ruth’s Chris of the world, or the Tazikis of the world or the Jimmy Johns of the world or whatever else may be there, we certainly go and assist them.”

That firm, Retail Specialists, told city officials that a steakhouse was needed. And you agree, with Ruth’s Chris receiving a lot of votes.

“It’s excellent,” says Montgomery resident Shelly Crews. “I love it. We need one very badly.”

“That would be awesome,” says Richard Till. “You’re kind of limited on the selection of foods down here.”

Strange says he’s wanted a steak house in the capitol city for quite some time, in the downtown area.

“A lot of people say they’ve got a good steak and they do have a good steak but they’re not known as a steak place like Flemings or a Morton’s or a Ruth’s Chris.”

Coming in third, you told us you wanted to see a Landry’s Seafood. Golson says all of these restaurants have been on the city’s radar but says each restaurant has their own criteria that they look for, including residential units and competing business.

“They look at the residential population, the daytime population, which in downtown Montgomery doubles.”

We have reached out to Aranov to see what restaurants they are working to recruit. We will keep you updated as we get that information.