Slater's 50/50: Come for the bacon burger. Stay for the experience.

Slater's 50/50 offers a variety of indulgent burgers.

A half-beef, half-bacon burger is a great gimmick. But gimmicks only go so far. Of course, Slater’s 50/50, with five open locations and a sixth on the way, offers more than just this signature sandwich. Customers can also tackle the peanut butter and jelly bacon burger, the Frito burger, chicken and pancakes and 101 craft beers. Business is so brisk that founder Scott Slater wants to take the idea national. We recently asked him about the concept.

RH: Your motto is “everything we do is to improve the guest experience.” How exactly do you accomplish that?

Slater: We really take that to heart and pound that into everybody. The key word is “improve.” The cool thing about our concept is that it’s young and very dynamic, so we are always looking for ways to improve the menu and the service. We employ two specific methods. The first is we deliver 100 percent plus 1, meaning we provide what people expect from us, with a little extra. So we might walk out to the car with someone who has a carryout order. The second is AGN: anticipating guests’ needs. Before someone asks for it we want to make sure they get it—I don’t like guests asking for drink refills, napkins, where their food is. If the kitchen is backed up, we communicate with guests about it. The service staff is engaging and speaking with guests and anticipating what their needs are.

RH: Other than the half beef/half ground bacon burger, what are standouts on your menu?

The layout of each restaurant varies, but each experience is customizable.

Slater: The bacon burger is where our word-of-mouth has come from. It’s what we call a disruptor, something that precedes us when we go into a market. It’s a great product, because that one item put us in the forefront. My personal favorite is the peanut butter, jelly and bacon burger. We pass out samples of it often, and people hesitate, but once they try it, they order it. You can get it a la mode, too. Our vampire dip, which combines roasted garlic, cheese and artichokes, also gets a lot of press.

RH: So you’re doing amped-up comfort food.

Slater: We call it excesstacy. We’re trying to trademark that word.  

RH: What separates you from other burgers-and-beer concepts?

Slater: Customization is one of the biggest things. We don’t have a designer menu, but we have nine protein choices, five breads, 11 cheeses, 40 toppings and 19 sauces. You can create almost a million combos of burgers. Also, we have about 100 beers on tap.

A lot of restaurants try to please everyone, and it turns into a disaster. I think we have a nice mix of a bar, a family place and sports bar. You can watch a game, but the sound isn’t on, so you can still bring your family there and not feel like you are at a sports bar. You can design your own experience: Eat something healthy or have a gut bomb, sit in the bar or at a table. We attract a lot of large parties because we cater to a lot of personalities. When guests look at the menu, they see so many creative items that they may never have heard of. It’s almost like we are telling them what they want before they know what they want.

RH: What’s a typical Slater’s 50/50 like?

Slater: We don’t have a lot of capital, so we go into defunct restaurant spaces. The buildings are all different—the smallest has 250 seats, the largest holds about 350. Our sweet spot seems to be 300 seats. The first one was in a strip mall, the second one took over a nightclub space and so on. The checks average about $18.50.

RH: People seem to be spending a lot of money on burgers.

Slater: With so many beers on tap, people try more than one. It’s the same way with the appetizers and desserts. I hate when Slater’s is characterized as a burger restaurant. It’s a restaurant that serves burgers.
 
RH: How do you plan to achieve national expansion?

Slater: Our cash flow has been good, and our expansion has been mostly organic so far. The last couple of stores were financed in part by SBA loans. Assuming that these first six stores are cranking, I figure we can expand at a responsible rate with our own cash flow. I don’t want to grow too fast and have the company implode. If I ever feel like our food or service quality decline, we are going to stop in our tracks.