ROCKINGHAM — Two local business owners have partnered to open a New York-style restaurant and bar based around a mutual love for Cadillacs — and a mutual sense that Rockingham is in need of a good place to eat.
Travis Webb, owner of T’s Custom Wheels and Tires, and Mark Meland, owner of Copy Proz, are co-owners of Caddys Chill and Grill which will be located on East Broad Avenue in the building recently vacated by The Ichiban Buffet. They are planning to open Aug. 1.
“There is absolutely nowhere to eat in town,” Webb said. “We just want something to kind of have our own little flavor, our little spin — not looking to get rich but it’s definitely a business to make money in.”
Meland, a Buffalo, New York-native, said Caddys will feature a brick oven for making “true New York-style” pizza and that the menu will range from a kid’s menu to steak and lobster. He added that there will be a separation between the family side and the bar side, with 10 T.V.’s set up for watching sporting events.
“We can do anything we want because we’re not corporate like all these other restaurants — add (menu items) any time we want,” Meland said. “There really shouldn’t be anybody that can say, ‘There’s nothing here that I like,’ because we’ll have a very wide variety.”
Meland said they see their location, 905 East Broad Ave., as a “dream location.”
“We looked at several buildings but we just kept coming back to this one,” Webb said.
Now a Richmond County resident for about 15 years, Meland said he’s always wanted to go into the restaurant business.
“There’s a lot of foods and different tasting sauces and stuff up north that I think people will really like down here that you just don’t find anywhere,” Meland said.
This is Webb’s and Meland’s first time owning a restaurant, and both will stay on as owners of their respective businesses. They said they are bringing management and kitchen staff from Moore County in to run the day-to-day operations of Caddys.
The pair met several years ago after Meland made frequent stops at T’s for work on his cars. Meland said he’s more a fan of the newer Cadillac models, while Webb is a fan of the older models. He said they hope to attract Cadillac clubs in the region to try to “fill the parking lot” with Cadillac’s at some point.
Meland and Webb are still in the process of obtaining electrical and plumbing permits for the building. The building is listed as 7,325 square feet, and an application for a business license for Caddys lists the seating capacity as 241 people.
Both Meland and Webb said the transition between them and the previous owner, Raintree Court LLC, was smooth, with Raintree taking the extra steps to help them change the city water account over and giving them pointers on how to manage the property, among assistance.
“As much as I’ve heard, ‘Hey man we need a place like this,’ … let’s see if people support it,” Webb said.
