Ker's WingHouse adds kick to Main Street

Crawford Ker knows his restaurant — a chain sports bar that proudly touts its waitresses as its main attraction — will be an outlier in downtown Sarasota. He likes it that way.

Ker’s WingHouse is moving into the building at 1991 Main St. that most recently housed the Half Shell Oyster House. With more than 20 locations in Florida, including Bradenton and Fort Myers, it was almost an inevitability that a restaurant would open in Sarasota, Ker said.

Still, the former NFL player admitted the restaurant would stand out when compared to other, more high-end offerings in the city’s downtown. He said that was a good thing, from his perspective, because it means he is filling a void in an area that saw the Sports Page Bar & Grille close last spring.

He believes that there’s an underserved market for his product, and that the location on the eastern end of Main Street is a perfect place to fill that void.

“I know Sarasota is kind of a mix of people,” Ker said. “I saw a lot of high-end types of restaurants, but I didn’t see anything that would fit into our category.”

In turn, those high-end restaurants welcome Ker’s entry into the marketplace. Sean Murphy, the owner of Eat Here, said the restaurant owners on the 1900 block of Main Street have begun meeting informally, and they agreed that the WingHouse would be a distinctive business that could draw traffic.

“We’re just looking forward to it,” Murphy said. “I think the consensus is the more the merrier.”

The eastern end of Main Street sits outside of the city’s Downtown Improvement District, and Murphy acknowledged that it’s seen less traffic than the area closer to the bayfront. Murphy said restaurant owners are meeting to help shine the light on their block and are discussing the possibility of working on joint marketing ventures together.

“I think our sense is that we’re not in competition with each other,” Murphy said. “If we can cooperate, it’ll be good for everyone.”

Despite Murphy’s belief that the eastern end of Main Street was eclectic enough for none of the businesses to be in competition with one another, Ker said he thought the addition of another more upscale restaurant in the area would be overkill. He felt his business offered a stark contrast, which would be beneficial to everyone involved.

“Something different is good, sometimes,” Ker said. “It’s important in our business that you’re not like everything else.”

Murphy said it would be prudish to decry Ker’s WingHouse’s use of sex appeal concerning its waitresses, and said he embraced the idea of the area becoming a lively stretch of Main Street. Between the opening of the bar and music venue Old School last September and the forthcoming move of McCurdy’s Comedy Theatre to 1923 Ringling Blvd., Murphy said the eastern end of downtown was more commonly being looked at as a dynamic place to be.

“As the economy is getting better and as the east end of Main Street is fleshing out a little bit, we’ve become a destination for entertainment,” Murphy said. “We’re looking forward to it being a very vibrant destination.”

Although Murphy praised the area’s vibrancy, Ker still acknowledged the Main Street location was different from the restaurant’s traditional sites — and said he welcomed any challenge.

“We’re kind of going against the grain,” Ker said. “I think going against the grain isn’t a bad thing.”

Contact David Conway at [email protected]