Founder Brandon Landry spent two decades proving Walk-On’s needed big restaurants. Now he’s betting the opposite is true.
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For two decades, Walk-On’s built its identity on being big, with restaurants starting around 7,000 square feet and some stretching to 12,000. Founder and CEO Brandon Landry, who came back to the role about a year ago after a brief step away, decided that formula was actually holding the brand back. So he went another direction entirely.
A new location at The Battery in Atlanta opened at just 3,700 square feet, roughly half the old standard, and still pulled in $4 million in sales last year. “The script is flipped,” Landry told FSR Magazine. More restaurants that size are already in the works, including one in Birmingham, and Walk-On’s expects to open around 10 new locations in 2026.
The smaller footprint means Walk-On’s can slide into spots that never made sense before: endcaps, strip mall renovations, smaller towns that couldn’t support the old model. It’s also opening the door to franchisees who used to see the size and cost as a dealbreaker.
The timing helps too. Rivals Hooters and Twin Peaks have both filed for bankruptcy recently, and Buffalo Wild Wings hasn’t grown its footprint in nearly a decade. Landry’s read: everyone else is playing it safe. He’s not.