Stir Crazy’s new prototype puts emphasis on the display kitchen.

Tables are now cleared of clutter, such as stacks of sharing plates, for a cleaner look. The cleaner tabletop also presents a customer-contact opportunity since servers now bring the sharing plates to the table.

Japanese Steak ($19), one of the entrees that survived a menu “housecleaning."

One of Stir Crazy’s best-selling appetizers is the $9 Avocado and Tuna Poke.

Longer term? “We want to be a premiere national brand in casual dining,” says Peter Nolan, director of marketing for the Chicago-based chain of full-service restaurants, which offer a pan-Asian menu as well as a do-it-yourself stir-fry bar.

Stir Crazy executives and industry observers say that goal is entirely reachable, from both a financial and competitive point of view. In 2006, Walnut Group, a Cincinnati-based private-equity firm, raised $25 million, an undisclosed portion of which was used to purchase Stir Crazy. “We paid cash for it,” explains Michael Strauss, Stir Crazy CEO. “We raised more equity than we needed…we raised enough for growth.”

As for the competitive scene, the time could be right for another full-service Asian chain to make a national splash. “The market is dominated by P.F. Chang's,” says Darren Tristano, executive vice president at Technomic Inc., a Chicago-based restaurant research firm. “There is a very low incidence of major chain restaurants, so there's definitely an opportunity.”

Stir Crazy, Tristano says, has an edge. Unlike Chicago-based Flat Top Grill or Ferndale, Mich.-based BD's Mongolian Barbecue, its culinary focus is on menu items, not do-it-yourself stir-fry. “Consumers don't want to cook,” he says. Plus, with DIY cooking, “you may be creating something that doesn't taste very good,” Tristano adds. Stir Crazy's extensive menu, for that reason, “is very smart,” he says.

Menu adjustments are among the many changes Stir Crazy has made to prepare for growth.

The menu, once at 95 items, was whittled to 60 items. The company deleted items that were slow sellers, strained the kitchen operationally or made purchasing difficult. For example, a popcorn shrimp appetizer ($7.95) was removed from the menu due to the difficulty of sourcing rock shrimp in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. An appetizer of plum-sauced chicken ($5.95) was difficult to execute.

Customers didn't complain about the missing items, Strauss says: “We haven't missed a beat on this.” The point was not necessarily to improve food or labor costs, but to improve service and therefore guest counts, he adds.

Stir Crazy also made some operational changes, including reducing the number of tables per server to three or four from five or six, a move that increased same-store sales by 2.5 percent in 2007 due to better service. Servers now wear a white button-down shirt, apron and black pants; the black, Asian-style wrap jacket they used to wear now adorns busers. The tabletop has been cleared of miscellanea such as table tents and stacks of sharing plates to give the room a sleeker look.

Stir Crazy has also embarked on a remodel program, spending anywhere from $50,000 to $400,000 per store. The remodeling program will be finished by mid-2008. A new prototype, which debuted in Greenwood, Ind., in early November, is the look for all future stores; it features a less cluttered interior, increased focus on the display kitchen, and a more colorful exterior. Launch costs, Strauss says, run about $2.5 million per store.

New management was careful not to make huge, sweeping changes. “We have just rethought everything out,” Strauss says, adding that new management lends “a fresh set of eyes” to the concept.

Since Walnut Group bought Stir Crazy two years ago, only one operating partner (Stir Crazy's term for general managers) has left the company. That, Strauss says, speaks to the level and impact of the new owners' changes.

Russell Mark, operating partner at the Stir Crazy location in Creve Coeur, Mo., agrees. “Most changes have been geared toward service,” says Mark, who's been with Stir Crazy for five years. Menu changes especially “did a great job of streamlining the menu without changing the food,” he says. Other adjustments such as reducing the table volume for servers have succeeded in moving year-over-year sales at Mark's restaurant, which has 275 seats, from low double-digit negative to what he calls “a few percentage points positive.”

Most importantly, he says, the staff has picked up on new management's positive feeling. “There's a lot of loyalty, a lot of company pride,” Mark says.

Employees, especially operating partners, are looking forward to the stepped-up expansion. “I joined the company with the goal of expansion,” Mark says.

All future stores will be company owned. With franchising, “you can't control the franchisee and the quality of the food,” says Strauss, whose restaurant experience includes a stint as a Burger King franchisee. “We don't think franchising will give us good healthy growth.”

Stir Crazy both leases and owns sites, depending on the deal and the situation. Because its main demographic is 35- to 50-year-olds with a median household income of $70,000, Stir Crazy will focus on suburban sites (though Strauss is considering a location in Chicago). Its most recent store opened in Greenwood, Ind., a suburb of Indianapolis; the next opening, early in 2008, will also be in suburban Indianapolis.

Future stores will open to fill in markets where Stir Crazy already exists, among them the Midwest, Northeast and Southeast. At the end of 2008, Stir Crazy will begin opening stores in the Southwestern United States.

Marketing efforts will eventually go national, but for now, they're locally focused and built around the slogan “Crazy Fresh.” One example: Stir Crazy has begun offering cooking classes, called “Cook Like a Wok Star,” at several stores. The two-hour class, which costs $20, includes cooking lessons for an appetizer, entree and dessert, plus a couple of glasses of wine. The classes, advertised via e-mail, sell out and get extensive press coverage, according to Nolan.

While financing is in place to grow and the opportunity for another full-service Asian chain exists, the future isn't without potential stumbling blocks. “Everybody's talking about $100 barrels of oil, and the sub-prime lending market,” Strauss says. “We are concerned about disposable income coming down because of higher oil prices, but these aren't things we can impact.”

Strauss, though, isn't worried, saying that he considers factors such as oil prices cyclical. “We have a strong concept that can weather difficult times,” he says.