First PDQ chicken restaurant going up in Tampa

The people who made Outback Steakhouse into a global success are trying their hand at the chicken sandwich.

The Outback founders have moved on since selling the steakhouse chain and are now launching a new restaurant chain to be called PDQ, as in "Pretty Darn Quick."

In many ways it will resemble the casual ethos of Panera Bread, and the fresh cooking at the burrito juggernaut Chipotle.

The first PDQ location is under construction now in South Tampa on Dale Mabry Highway, and should open in late October, putting these former Outbackers into direct competition with giants like Zaxby's, Chick-fil-A, and the biggest chicken giant of them all, KFC.

"The difference will be, this is fresh food, made from scratch for people on the go," said Bob Basham, principal owner of PDQ and an original founder of Outback.

Basham and others have been working on the concept after a marathon tour of restaurants around the country.

"I think there was one day I tried 17 chicken sandwiches," said Nick Reader, a principal owner of PDQ and chief executive of MVP Holdings, which runs projects from several former Outback company executives, like the Lee Roy Selmon's restaurants and the auto repair chain Carsmetics.

One restaurant that Basham and Reader tried was Tenders in near Charlotte, which focuses on fresh-made chicken sandwiches and thick milkshakes.

"What really impressed us was the quality of the food, the freshness, the limited menu, the focus on local food sources," Basham said.

Basham and other MVP principals essentially acquired the Tenders concept, but radically overhauled the atmosphere and design.

Instead of the Tenders motif of a rugged roadhouse, the PDQ design will be a modern, airy design with plenty of glass and polished recycled wood.

The kitchen will be out in the open, similar to Chipotle, so customers can see their food prepared fresh. Cooks will hand-bread chicken breasts and mix salad dressings from scratch ingredients.

In the drive thru, customers will place their order with a cashier, not through a "Squawk Box," and they'll drive past a large glass window where cooks hand-cut French fries.

"Everything is fresh," Basham said. That means buying bread from local bakeries, using fresh strawberries cut on site for milkshakes and vegetables from the closest farms that can supply them. "I think the only freezer in the place is for the milkshakes."

Basham also studied busy parents at fast-casual restaurants like Chick-fil-A to find flaws in the experience.

"At other restaurants, we found so many Moms would have to wait in line for the bathrooms to help kids wash their hands," Basham said. "So we put a sink and cleanup station right in the dinning area."

The menu will include a few new things for dinners, including a turkey breast sandwich that's kept whole, not sliced. But like Chipotle, the menu will be relatively limited, Reader said, to make sure the restaurant focuses on doing just a few things very well. Combination meals will cost less than $7, including a drink.

Each site will be about 3,200 square feet, roughly the size of a small drug store. As for expansion plans, Basham said they'll start like they did with Outback: Build one, perfect the process, then build another and keep perfecting.

They're already in negotiations with potential franchisees, though the focus for now will be building company-owned sites.

If the restaurant experience sounds familiar, there's a reason.

Plenty of companies are trying the fast-casual concept that offers fresher food than a fast-food burger joint, but at lower prices than a restaurant with table service.

The Five Guys burger chain is expanding quickly by focusing on cooking fresh burgers in an open kitchen. Even in the chicken sandwich game, PDQ will have plenty of competition from giants beyond hick-fil-A, Zaxby's and KFC. There's also Popeye's, Church's, McDonald's, and even Pollo Tropical.

If PDQ has one big advantage, it's the founders.

Basham is a principal owner and helped build Outback Steakhouse into a global brand. Stephen Erickson was senior vice president of operations for Outback. Another outback founder, Chris Sullivan, is not a formal investor, though he's a supporter and fan of the concept.

"I really like it," Sullivan said. "It's an R&D project, but if they execute well, it could be a big success."

PDQ launches just as the U.S. restaurant industry could use a boost. After rising in the spring, visits to U.S. restaurants slipped by 0.4 percent in the second quarter, though the average check rose a bit, 1.5 percent, according to market tracker NPD Group.

Launching a restaurant is far easier than keeping it going, notes Bonnie Riggs a restaurant analyst with NPD. More than 8,000 independent restaurants have closed in the last six months.

Among the brightest spots in the restaurant market are these kinds of fast-casual chains, she said, and the PDQ concept, "seems to hit on all the right notes."

Luckily, she said, the whole fast-casual segment is expected to grow at double-digit rates over the next 10 years.