May 4—Walk into Boardwalk Café in downtown Logansport any afternoon and you are bound to find Jessica behind the counter, ready to greet you with a smile. She might be joking around with Kiley or maybe it’s Lilly. Nathan is waiting in the wings for the first delivery of the day.
So, what makes a local restaurant special over a national chain?
“I think it’s right there,” said Bryon Stephens, a co-founder of Pivotal Growth Partners and Boardwalk Cafe. “It’s the people. You didn’t even mention the food. It’s the people. You get to know the people in a local restaurant. They greet you by name and they know what you are up to and they share in your life. You don’t get that at a national chain. The people don’t know you there. You are just a face.”
Stephens has been on both sides of the aisle. He’s also worked with franchises such as KFC and Taco Bell.
Logansport has seen an influx of new restaurants in the past year, from Culvers to Wendy’s, the recent announcement of McAlister’s Deli and the slow wait for Dunkin Donuts and Jimmy John’s.
According to the National Restaurant Association, 45 percent of restaurant operators expected competition in 2024 to be more intense than it was a year ago.
It’s difficult to start a new restaurant. According to The National Restaurant Association, approximately 60 percent of restaurants fail during their first year and 80 percent do not make it beyond five years.
The addition of a new national chain always brings a bit of excitement to a community, but it can also cause some anxiety for the smaller locally owned establishments.
Changes coming
Things are different when it comes to attracting new businesses to Logansport.
Bill Cuppy, president of the Logansport/ Cass County Chamber of Commerce and president of the Cass Logansport Economic Development Organization, remembers when he would have to call franchises to try to fill needs in Logansport.
“Truthfully, it’s changed,” he said. “Franchises, a lot of times, rely on other franchises to do the work for them: the demographic studies, the location studies, the traffic count studies, all the things that go into the leakage reports of who is leaving your community and who is coming here. They rely on other franchises to do that work and then they follow them. If franchise XYZ comes to Logansport, franchise ABC may try to cohabitate with that retailer.”
Cuppy said that Logansport is currently in a position where chains are watching how other national restaurant brands are performing in the city and basing decisions on whether to buy into Logansport on that data.
“These are all stock companies,” he said. “You can go online and find out how they are doing. So, if you see they have moved to Logansport and are successful, that’s why other ones are coming. It changes our roll. It’s a different mindset. We’re still attracting them but my focus in the past year has been more on the retail side and not necessarily on the restaurant side. We’re getting the restaurants now and are trying to fill retail spaces across town.”
Cuppy said restaurants are choosing Logansport’s East side because it has double the traffic as the West side. But space is growing limited in that area and that will force businesses to look closer at the West end of town.
It’s kind of the same dilemma for finding new places to bring a chain restaurant. Stephens said that one reason national chains are looking at Logansport and other smaller communities is because they have filled the larger cities.
Businesses may choose Logansport, but Cuppy said they aren’t being given a financial incentive to do so. He felt that would give them to much of an advantage against the homegrown businesses.
“If I were to give franchise X $100,000 to come here that would be a disadvantage to the group that is here selling the same thing,” he explained. “So, we have stayed away from that. The Culvers, the Dunkins, the McAlister’s and the Wendy’s of the world did not receive a financial incentive. And, fortunately, we haven’t had to do it to get them here.”
Instead of financial incentives, the city has instead focused on improving the schools, the parks and infrastructure.
“We market that and then they want to come here,” he said.
Cuppy said he was happy to talk to anyone who might have questions about business in Logansport.
“They can call me,” he said. “I can promise on the playing field the franchise restaurants, monetarily, there has not been an uneven playing field.”
A local business owner’s perspective
Marissa Bergstedt bought Black Dog, 116 S. Sixth St., in August 2022. Before Bergstedt, it was the place to go in Logansport for small meetings, quiet time or just to see friends while enjoying a drink.
Since she bought Black Dog, it’s the place to go in Logansport for small meetings, quiet time or just to see friends while enjoying a drink.
Bergstedt said she wasn’t going to lie. She’s a little nervous about the national food chains coming into Logansport. For her, Dunkin Donuts will be a direct competitor. Dunkin Donuts will also affect Bolin’s Donuts, too.
A lot of Black Dog’s success was already built when she bought the coffee shop.
But to keep it going, she said, it’s taken compassion towards the customers and a drive to support the community.
She felt that the sense of community at Black Dog would be a benefit when Dunkin Donuts finally arrives.
Black Dog is more than just a place to drink coffee. It’s a place to buy locally crafted art or grab wine after work. Upstairs, Bergstedt has rented out rooms to several businesses, including Plant Therapy, the tattoo parlor Mob’s Haven and more.
Black Dog also hosts live music, will open the floor to members of the Logansport High School speech team and welcomed Stand Up Cass County to hold a monthly board game evening for local youth.
“As far as certain chains coming in, they are a trend,” she said. “That’s what people are so used to, that coffee flavor, so they aren’t really used to the authentic coffee that we serve.”
She said national chains have a lot to offer but what Black Dog offers is fun and unique flavors that are created in house.
“You don’t get that with a corporate business at all,” she said.
Bergstedt said she can financially budget to prepare for a new business coming to town or she can directly compete with them.
She knew drive-thru service would be one of the big draws for Dunkin Donuts just as it is for Scooter’s Bergstedt doesn’t want that at Black Dog, but she is working on implementing online ordering so that customers can quickly pick up their drinks.
There is no perfect balance between local and national chains for a community to establish, Cuppy said. People will decide that with their spending money.
One big community
A 2023 “Forbes” article found that national restaurant chains were beginning to shift their marketing strategies to focus on local connections.
That’s not to say national chains in Logansport don’t contribute to the community already. Walmart has donated bikes to be given away at the summer Bike Rodeo, a bike safety event. They also open up their business each Christmas for “Shop with a Cop” and allow their employees to take time and volunteer for each event.
When Darren Kaczmarek retired as general manager of Pizza Hut in 2022, there was an outpouring of love for him and his contributions to the community. He was even the Chamber of Commerce businessman of the year at one point in his 40 years with the franchise.
Cuppy didn’t want others to have a misconception of what chains can do for a community.
“A lot of local individuals own the franchise,” he said. “B&K is a franchise. We don’t think of it because it’s a local owner. They are doing great and everyone knows them. But even the national chains such as Culver’s employs 30 or 40 Logansport people that spend their money here, that shop here and they live here and they pay taxes here. I do think locals have the advantage of adapting quicker and knowing more people and having the sense of the local market, however.”
In Indiana, restaurants were the third largest private employer in the state, according to the National Restaurant Association. In 2023, the industry accounted for 315,800 restaurant and food service jobs.
Stephens felt one of the true advantages to supporting a local restaurant is that they also support other local businesses such as buying food products locally. Bergstedt said that Black Dog works with a coffee roaster in Monticello. She also credited the local businesses in the community for standing up for and supporting one another.
When Plant Therapy lost heat in its store during a very cold night in 2022, Bergstedt found a place upstairs for owner Aly Irvin to move into.
“Our community is so supportive of local businesses,” she said. “When you shop local, no matter where you are going—The Record Farm, Bonus Pints, La Fiesta or Sage ‘n Tonic—any of these places, we give so much back to the community and we are involved in the community. Your money is going back into it.”
Bergstedt said that Black Dog is big on sponsoring events within the community like Teen or Junior Miss Cass County, high school plays and Junior Civic Theatre and she and her baristas can often be found out in the community participating in events, as well.
“From big chains, you don’t see any sponsorships or any creativity,” she said. “Working in chains is harder, especially in coffee shop chains. The coffee shops I’ve worked in are different from local to corporate. Corporate coffee shops are so restricting. You have to have a certain color palette. You can’t wear perfume. To change the environment, it’s just so restrictive. They don’t really care about you. Whereas here, we’re just excited to help each other and build a family feel and let the creative flow.”
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