Chuck Magerl, owner of Free State Brewery, 636 Mass., has a summer reading suggestion for Lawrence restaurant owners the phone book.

Magerl, who also owns Wheatfields Bakery & Cafe, 904 Vt., spent time last year at the Lawrence Public Library reading about 12 years worth of past phone books looking at Lawrence restaurant trends.

“What we were finding is that you could count on a Lawrence restaurant going out of business every month and maybe about one and half restaurants starting up every month,” Magerl said. “I’m not sure I know what all that means but it seems to say something interesting about the industry and our town.”

From a statistical standpoint, Lawrence has seen its number of restaurants grow on an annual basis. Current and past members of the restaurant industry are split, though, on whether the growth has been healthy.

“The numbers concern me,” said Dana Duellman, who owned Pachamama’s World Cuisine, 2161 Quail Creek Drive, until she sold it in January. “I think almost any restaurateur in Lawrence would tell you that there are too many restaurants in Lawrence.”

Others in the industry, however, say the growth rate of Lawrence restaurants doesn’t concern them.

“It’s probably overdue,” said Gregory Keenan, owner of Papa Keno’s Pizzeria, 1035 Mass. “Lawrence is the neatest town in Kansas. It was just a matter of time before people realized there was a lot of potential money to be made.

“I say keep them coming. The more the better. If I’m afraid of competition, then that means I’m not doing my job right.”

By the numbers

But just how many restaurants are in Lawrence? The Journal-World recently researched the subject and found the number of restaurants has nearly tripled in the past 30 years.

	Here’s a look at the number of total eating establishments in Lawrence, percentage that were located in downtown and number of restaurants per capita.1972: 56 total; 18 percent in downtown; 1 restaurant for about every 820 residents.1982: 85 total; 16 percent in downtown; 1 restaurant for about every 635 residents.1992: 101 total; 17 percent in downtown; 1 restaurant for about every 660 residents.2002: 137 total; 30 percent in downtown; 1 restaurant for about every 610 residents.

Using past Polk City Directories, a type of phone directory, the Journal-World found 56 restaurants listed in 1972, or one restaurant for about 820 residents. According to the April 2002 edition of the city directory, there were 137 restaurants, or one restaurant for about 610 residents. For comparison, Lawrence had approximately 46,000 residents in 1972 and 83,500 in 2002, according to numbers from the Lawrence-Douglas County Planning Department.

Differing opinions

Magerl said he believed some people jumped into the Lawrence restaurant business for the wrong reasons.

“I think one factor is that we have gotten a lot of out-of-town visitors on some major event weekends, and the restaurants are real busy during those times,” Magerl said. “Sometimes a restaurant owner from another city will see that and say we have to get in this market because this town is just going gangbusters.

“But if they came on a Wednesday afternoon, they might see a whole different picture.”

Plus, there are just plenty of people who want to go into the restaurant business, said Bob Schumm, who owns Buffalo Bob’s Smokehouse and Mass Street Deli, both on Massachusetts Street.

“Part of this has been caused by a popular misconception that if you own a restaurant, you are going to be make oodles and oodles of money,” said Schumm, who maintains the Lawrence market is super saturated. “People have this real romantic idea of the business so they start one up. But a lot of times they don’t realize there’s a lot of work and the profit margins are fairly low.”

Relatively new entrants to the market disagree. They say Lawrence is seeing its restaurant numbers grow simply because the city offers great business opportunities.

Fee Monshizadeh, general manager of Marisco’s, 4821 W. Sixth St., which opened about two years ago, said the community’s location is a natural for restaurants.

“Being between Topeka and Kansas City and with the University of Kansas, there’s just lots of traffic,” Monshizadeh said. “And I-70 makes it very attractive too.”

Ed Hernandez, owner of Mexi-Kans, 2412 Iowa, which opened three months ago, said he thought there were opportunities for restaurants to be successful in Lawrence because he believed students’ tastes are turning away from fast-food chains.

“We felt we could do something a little different,” Hernandez said.

Monshizadeh said he thought the demand for new restaurants was still there, pointing out that almost every newly opened restaurant was swamped during the first few weeks after its opening.

“Lawrence is just the type of town where people like to go out,” Monshizadeh said. “I think a few years ago, lots of Lawrence residents were going to Kansas City or Topeka to try something different. Now we have lots of people coming to Lawrence from Kansas City and Topeka.”

Chain reaction

Many Topeka and Kansas City restaurants are coming to Lawrence as well.

	Downtown’s dining growth has been significant. Here’s a look at the numbers:In 1972 there were a total of 10 restaurants in the downtown area. Those restaurants accounted for about 18 percent of the city’s total.In the ’80s and ’90s the number of downtown restaurants grew, but still accounted for only about 18 percent of the total.In 2002, the number of downtown restaurants has grown to 41 and represents 30 percent of the town’s total.

“In the last five years I’ve really seen Lawrence get on the franchise map,” Keenan said.

Chris Coleman, owner of the Lawrence Pizza Company, 601 Kasold Drive, said he realized just how much of a presence chain restaurants were becoming when he read that Applebee’s Bar & Grill had plans to open a second restaurant in Lawrence at the corner of Sixth Street and Monterey Way.

“For a town our size, that seems kind of amazing,” Coleman said. “But I think we’ll just keep seeing more and more of them and that just means it will be tougher on the independents to survive.”

Duellman said that was a major concern of hers too.

“What you are going to see is that the chain restaurants have the big bucks and the mega marketing that they can wait out the slow times,” Duellman said. “You’ll see them continue to do well, but it will be the small independent restaurants that will have some tough choices to make.”

Restaurants owners interviewed for this story were reluctant to talk about sales totals, but several said sales had slumped. Duellman said she thought the smaller restaurants could help themselves by helping each other.

“Unfortunately there really isn’t a friendly competition in this town,” Duellman said. “They don’t work together and help each other out, and that needs to change if they’re all going to make it.”

Downtown draw

But numbers from the Polk directory suggest it isn’t just restaurant chains that are opening up in town.

And as Keenan said, a quick drive down Massachusetts Street would show downtown was still a “local yokel” place when it came to eating establishments.

“I think a lot of that is because downtown has changed from being simply a business professional area to more of a college hangout,” Duellman said. “A lot of the restaurants down there cater to college kids.”

Consumers win

Although restaurateurs couldn’t agree on whether the growing number of restaurants is good for the industry, almost all agreed that consumers are benefiting from the choices.

“I don’t know if it is good for me, but it should be good for the customers because if there’s lots of competition, it keeps the costs restaurants can charge down,” Coleman said.

Monshizadeh agrees, but said customers benefited in more ways than just price.

“It’s a great deal for the consumer because restaurants have to be so much more attractive and accommodating,” Monshizadeh said. “After all, with 140 restaurants in town, people have lots of choices, so you have to do whatever you can to accommodate them.”