Pennant blown away by crowds

A booming first weekend of business for a new downtown restaurant put employees and vendors to the test, leaving The Pennant's management to take some unique action.

The Pennant, 915 S. Kansas Ave., opened March 16 in the midst of March Madness, the Topeka St. Patrick's Day Parade and spring break. As a result, it served more than 2,000 people in its first three days, said Thad Halstead, marketing director for the restaurant's developer, AIM Strategies.

"We’re excited. It shows that Topeka is ready for business to be open downtown," he said. "I think there’s a demand that’s been here that we saw, and I think we’re right about it. It's a unique concept with great food and a great atmosphere, and Topeka came out in droves to see it."

Those droves challenged the fledgling business, and Halstead said managers were quick to recognize that and take action. The Pennant first shut down at 2 p.m. Wednesday and reopened at 11 a.m. Thursday.

"It gave us a chance to kind of honestly understand where the problems lie," he said. "You can always diagnose a problem on the fly, but we’re into making this a truly outstanding experience for Topeka. For us to do that, we needed to be able to kind of sit down and collect our thoughts and bounce our ideas off each other and figure out how to make this work. We're not interested in the short-term fixes. We see this as a long play and are just completely jazzed about downtown."

The second move to address some issues, including slow service that a few customers complained about online, was to set up a short-term, limited menu. Halstead said the menu maintains the variety that is important to Pennant customers, including salmon, salad selections and chicken, as well as burgers.

"Pedro (Concepcion, executive chef) did a fantastic job of keeping enough variety on the menu so that it holds true to the original menu and all of the fun he put into it, but it’s also something manageable that the kitchen can get through," Halstead said.

The limited menu should ease the strain on the kitchen. Meanwhile, Halstead stayed firmly focused on the positive.

"The big thing has just really been forecasting demand. I would say we probably did double to triple what we thought," he said. "We do and we did have lofty expectations, but Topeka showed up. And when they show up, they show up big, and we’re grateful for it. I don’t know that we would have anticipated downtown to respond the way that it did."

Given that response, Halstead said, the restaurant also is looking for additional staff.