Staff File Photo / The Cheddar's restaurant sign is shown at the eatery's location on Gunbarrel Road in Chattanooga.A second Cheddar's restaurant is slated to open in the Chattanooga area next summer as the eatery brings its scratch kitchen menu to another location.
The new Cheddar's is to open on busy Paul Huff Parkway in Cleveland, Tennessee, likely around July or August, said Chattanooga developer Bassam Issa.
"People had been asking for it all the time," he said. "There's a lot of need for Cheddar's in Cleveland."
For the past five or six years, Issa said, the search had been on to find the right location for the second Cheddar's in the area.
"We never got the right property until now," he said about the site at 578 Paul Huff Parkway. "We found the right property that would fit them."
The developer is providing the site of a former Rite Aid pharmacy that has been torn down. The location is across the parkway from the Publix supermarket and shopping center and amid a variety of other restaurants, stores and offices which have opened in that part of Cleveland in recent years.
The first Cheddar's in the Chattanooga area opened about seven years ago on heavily traveled Gunbarrel Road near the Walmart store and across from Hamilton Place, which is the region's top retail center.
According to the Cheddar's website, the business started in 1979 in Irving, Texas, and now has more than 170 restaurants in 28 states.
The company boasts a "scratch kitchen" menu, noting it takes the time to make its dishes daily instead of defrosting its food.
The restaurant company cited its well-known offerings such as its honey-butter croissants, homemade chicken pot pie, hand-breaded fried chicken tenders and smoked barbecue ribs.
Issa said the Cleveland Cheddar's will span about 7,800 square feet. That's slightly smaller than the 8,600-square-foot restaurant off Gunbarrel Road.
"It's a fantastic site," he said about the location of the Cleveland eatery that will go up near the Home Depot store. "They'll do great."
Cheddar's nationally employs about 23,000 people, according to the website. An official associated with the Chattanooga restaurant said at the time it was under construction that eatery would employ about 200 people and seat about 355 patrons.
"It has great prices, large portions at reasonable prices," said Lee Greer, president of Lexington, Kentucky-based Greer Cos., at the time. "That's the wow of Cheddar's."
Contact Mike Pare at mpare@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6318. Follow him on Twitter @MikePareTFP