Jack's Family Restaurants, which entered the Chattanooga market a year ago with its Lookout Valley restaurant on Cummings Highway, will open another local restaurant Wednesday in Fort Oglethorpe and is looking at adding another unit in Hixson within the next year.
The Birmingham, Ala.-based fast-food chain has built an 85-seat restaurant at 56 Lakeshore Drive in Fort Oglethorpe and will open the new unit at 5 a.m. Wednesday. Jack's will offer grand opening prizes, including free Jack's breakfasts for a week for the first 50 customers Wednesday morning, and a $1 milk shake fundraiser for both the Lakeview-Fort Oglethorpe High School and Ringgold High School bands, which are scheduled to each play during a band competition at the new restaurant from 5-7 p.m. Wednesday.
Founded in 1960, Jack's is known for its unique, at-home Southern environment and menu items such as made-from-scratch biscuits, hand-breaded fried chicken and hand-dipped ice cream shakes. In addition to Jack's signature burgers and chicken, the restaurant offers full breakfasts and dinner platters with sides like green beans or grits on the menu.
The typical entree is about $5.50 each and about 70 percent of its sales come through its drive-in window.
The Fort Oglethorpe restaurant will be only the sixth location in Georgia for Jack's, which expects to have 150 units by the end of this year in Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi and Tennessee. Samantha Knight, Jack's field marketing coordinator, said Jack's plans to open eight to 10 more restaurants this year and 12 to 14 more units in 2018.
"The Chattanooga location is doing very well and we want to expand our presence in this market," Knight said, noting that at least a couple of more units are expected in the Chattanooga area.
The typical Jack's restaurant employs about 50 full- and part-time workers and is open from 5 a.m. to 10 p.m. Monday through Thursday, from 5 a.m. to 11 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays and from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. on Sunday.
"We've truly enjoyed expanding our staff with the addition of our Fort Oglethorpe team because there's so much about this city that is reminiscent of our favorite towns across our four-state footprint," Todd Bartmess, Jack's CEO, said in a statement Monday. "We're confident everyone will find something to enjoy on our menu and we can't wait to discover what the local favorite is."
Jack Caddell started the chain in 1960 as a single walk-up stand in the Birmingham, Ala., suburb of Homewood. Benny LaRussa later acquired the chain before selling the majority interest in 2015 to a private equity firm based in Toronto, known as Onex Partners.
Contact Dave Flessner at dflessner@timesfreepress.com or at 423-757-6340.