The smell of hot dogs will waft through East Lansing by August, when the first National Coney Station, a condensed version of a National Coney Island restaurant, will open, company president Tom Giftos said.
The restaurant will take over what was E.L. Moe’s Firehouse Grill at 565 E. Grand River Ave. It won’t be a full-service restaurant, though seating will be available, and the menu will be smaller than a traditional Coney Island restaurant, Giftos said. The operations are scaled down because of the space available in the restaurant, he said.
“It’s not going to be a traditional store,” he said. “It’s going to be almost like a Chipotle, where you get your food and sit down.”
Giftos said the station would sell Coney dogs, sandwiches, burgers and salads.
“Essentially, we’re going to be offering all the favorites,” said Bradford Egan, director of business development for the restaurant chain. “It’s the old 80-20 rule. Twenty percent of our menu comprises 80 percent of our sales, so we’re going to take that 20 percent.”
Egan said he hoped the restaurant would open at least a month before classes start and it would be open by the beginning of August at the latest. Egan said he and Giftos had been looking at possible locations closer to the Capitol building in Lansing, but stumbled across the vacant restaurant on Grand River Avenue during a drive through campus.
“It kind of happened a little by accident,” Giftos said.
Giftos said he didn’t doubt there would be a market for Coney dogs in East Lansing.
“With social networking we’re kind of hearing a lot (about how) there isn’t one up there (in East Lansing),” he said. “We’re filling a void as much as filling a niche.”
David Jaques, a 2009 MSU graduate said he was excited about the new restaurant because he ate at National Coney Island at home in Detroit.
“It’s kind of reassuring, having something that makes it more like home,” he said. “Hopefully it’ll stay longer than the previous three or four incarnations.”
Egan said he wasn’t worried about the property’s history of turnovers. E.L. Moe’s opened in July and closed in October. It had replaced Spartan Gyros, which opened in October 2007 and closed in March 2008. Before that, the property housed a Taco Bell, but sat vacant for a year after the restaurant moved to its current location at 602 E. Grand River Ave.
He said improving the property’s atmosphere would be important, including a new color scheme and outdoor patio space.
“(We’re going to) brighten it up, freshen it up … make it into a nice, new operating restaurant,” he said. “It’s going to be very inviting.”
Psychology senior Becca Smith said the restaurant’s success would depend on being able to appeal to students on budgets.
“If they’re a reasonable price, everybody’s looking for a good meal around campus,” she said.
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