TheBuzz Erika Engle

Windward Ruby to start with dinner

This will be the first Hawaii Ruby Tuesday to open only for dinner at first. The others, in Mililani and Ala Moana, opened in the late morning and went all-out, all-day from then on.

"It eases execution on the restaurant and the experience is better for the guest," said Will Keliinoi, president and operational partner of RT Restaurants Hawaii Inc., exclusive Hawaii franchisee for the Ruby Tuesday chain.

The Mililani store, Hawaii's first Ruby Tuesday, "broke opening records" for the chain, he said.

That is a phenomenon Hawaii has repeatedly provided for national restaurant and retail chains' openings.

Debuting full-day service means opening the doors at about 10 a.m. "and getting hammered all day long," which is difficult "when you're trying to train 100 people how to do a new job," Keliinoi said.

The restaurant will begin full hours of operation, opening at 10:30 a.m. starting May 16.

Keliinoi, Ted Davenport and Rick Nakashima, the exclusive Hawaii franchisees for Ruby Tuesday restaurants, have been hiring for a couple of weeks and are finding it a bit of a struggle to find experienced cooks.

The hiring of front-of-the-house personnel including wait staff, "doesn't seem to be an issue," Keliinoi said.

The Windward Mall Ruby Tuesday will be the second largest thus far, at 5,600 square feet. Mililani's is 6,500 square feet with more than 50 tables and Ala Moana's is 4,500 with 39 tables.

Oahu's fourth Ruby Tuesday, under construction at Moanalua Shopping Center, will be 4,500 square feet, including an adjacent lanai seating area, he said. That restaurant is to open in August, on the site of an old neighborhood drug store with a dining counter where Keliinoi's grandfather would take him as a child. "It's good to be home and to be able to bring something like this back home," he said.

Keliinoi's almost-Southern accent is almost jarring, based on preconceived notions about how a Keliinoi should sound. He grew up in Hawaii and on the mainland, and for eight years worked at Ruby Tuesday corporate in Tennessee. He met Davenport and Nakashima at the corporate training center and joined the team so he could return home.

It has been a triumphal return, as "we, at any given point through the year, are the number-one producing restaurants in the company," Keliinoi said. A Ruby Tuesday just opened in Greece, and "it looks like they might take us, but I'm thinking we can get that back with (the) Windward Mall or Moanalua (locations). I think either one of those restaurants has the potential of taking over the number-one spot."

Should that occur, the Hawaii locations of Ruby Tuesday will join the local operations of Cheesecake Factory, California Pizza Kitchen and other national chains, as top sales engines for their respective parent companies.

Keliinoi sees many more opportunities for Ruby Tuesday on Oahu -- for as many as 10 or 12 locations, not to mention the neighbor islands. The Moanalua store will meet the franchisees' initial commitment, but there's also Waikiki, Hawaii Kai, Kapolei, Pearl Ridge and Ward, he noted.

That's Davenport's gig, as the development and expansion partner. His Subway franchise is a separate business, he said.

Something that is not evident on the company Web site is why the chain of more than 800 eateries is called Ruby Tuesday.

Company lore has it that the company founders, college buddies, "were cruising around ... trying to figure out a name (for the restaurant they'd decided to establish) and the Rolling Stones song came on the radio." It was 1972 -- and the decision was made to call it Ruby Tuesday, the No. 1 hit from 1967. To Keliinoi's knowledge, no money ever changed hands for the song title, written by Keith Richards and the late Brian Jones, but credited to Richards and Mick Jagger on the original recording. Jagger later gave credit to Jones.