Restauratour: High Definition Decor at Fox Sports Grill

Details such as waterfalls and fireplaces elevate Fox Sports Grill beyond mere sports bar.

By Lisa Bertagnoli, Contributing Editor -- Chain Leader, 6/1/2003

Take a photographic tour of Fox Sports Grill

Sixty-five television screens might make the Fox Sports Grill in Scottsdale, Ariz., the perfect couch-away-from-couch for avid sports fans. A few details, however, turn the multiroom, 18,000-square-foot restaurant into one that’s as friendly to diners as it is to sports nuts. Waterfalls grace the foyer and the main dining room, as do tall vases of silk flowers. Antique sideboards double as wait stations. Fireplaces crackle in two dining rooms as well as on the outdoor patio, and a glass wall affords diners the sight, if not the sound, of a display kitchen and its wood-fired grill.

That “come for the game, stay for a meal” feeling is exactly what Bill Freeman had in mind when he and Fox executives sat down about two years ago to plan a full-service restaurant bearing the Fox logo.

“Fox and myself realized we have 21 regional networks around the country and team relationships in almost every market,” says Freeman, CEO of B&B Restaurant Ventures LLC, the Westlake Village, Calif.-based company that operates Fox Sports Grill. (Marriott operates the 2,000-square-foot airport kiosks that bear the Fox name.)

Fox’s market presence and reputation for sports coverage “gives us an opportunity to create a new category of experience,” Freeman says. “Patrons may just want to have a great meal and share conversation. We tried to create an environment that allows for that.”

Something for the Ladies
To be sure, the 65 high-definition televisions, three of which are 12-foot projector screens, dominate the design, especially in the bar. An audiovisual tech consultant oversaw the placement of wiring and cable, and a lighting designer made sure that the screens would be glare-free and easily viewable. Once the surprise of so many televisions wears off, the overall impression of the restaurant is at once sporty and homey, as if the late Roone Arledge designed the space, then invited Martha Stewart to accessorize. In the waiting area, masculine touches such as flagstone walls, wood paneling and a bright-blue Fox logo are balanced with feminine details such as potted palms, silk-flower arrangements and delicate wrought-iron benches.

Those details were added at Fox’s urging, says Charles Daboub, the Dallas designer who worked on the project. “I may have gone with more contemporary or massive pieces, but the eclectic look worked out well,” says Daboub, who designed the original Planet Hollywood.

A choice of dining spaces, ranging from the bar and its 15 televisions to a closed-off private dining room, also fosters the dinner-house feeling. Patrons who want to watch TV can sit at the cracked-glass-topped bar, which is surrounded with hefty stools. A raised dining room and poolroom, separated from the bar by a glass divider, allow patrons seated there to enjoy the bar action without being immersed in it.

Patrons who couldn’t care less about sports might choose the television-free
dining area to the right of the waiting area. The room boasts a two-sided fireplace, a waterfall and a view of the glassed-in display kitchen. Here, antique-looking hutches serve as wait stations, and gold-framed mirrors, rather than televisions, decorate the walls.

Beyond the TV-free zone, a simply decorated dining room serves as an extension of the patio, a restaurant must-have in Scottsdale. Beyond the patio lies a putting green for patrons who would rather play sports than watch them. True to the desert location, a tall saguaro cactus stands watch over the putting green.

Future Change-Ups
While subsequent Fox Sports Grills, planned for Irvine, Calif., and Seattle, will be friendly to both dinner guests and sports fans, some aspects of the design will change from market to market. “We are very focused on not doing a cookie-cutter design,” Freeman says. “I think our whole philosophy is taking each market and figuring out what fits there.”

For instance, rainy Seattle will probably not have a putting green, and not all the restaurants will have retail stores that sell Fox-logoed and golf apparel, as does the Scottsdale location. Because golf is so popular in Arizona, the retail store “made sense in Scottsdale, but we are not a theme restaurant and don’t want to send that message,” Freeman says.

Daboub says the message he’d like the design to send is that of a comfortable dining experience. “I’ve done many projects where the ‘wow’ effect was the goal,” he says. “With this one, the thought was always the patron’s experience.”