Camille's Kicks Off A New Brand

In just 10 years, Camille's Sidewalk Cafe has gone from a single sandwich cart at Woodland Hills mall to more than a hundred restaurants in two-dozen states. This year, Camille's is going from

Friday, January 5th 2007, 10:07 am

By: News On 6

In just 10 years, Camille's Sidewalk Cafe has gone from a single sandwich cart at Woodland Hills mall to more than a hundred restaurants in two-dozen states. This year, Camille's is going from the Sidewalk to the Beach, Coney Beach.

News on 6 reporter Steve Berg has more on the Tulsa company's new concept.

"Coney Beach is a very, very cool concept," said Camilleâ€™s founder David Rutkauskas.

Rutkauskas says the light bulb went off while eating a coney in Tulsa.

"And I thought to myself, you know what, I think I can do this better and give the customer a better experience," Rutkauskas said.

Then he was off to Southern California to get ideas.

"We're going to recreate the experience that you would see on a beach in southern California, y'know, corrugated tin, cork floors, really cool decking," said Rutkauskas. "It's a beachside gourmet dog, gourmet burger, gourmet fries concept set in a fast-casual environment."

Rutkauskas sees Coney Beach filling a niche between the low-end coney stand and a Fuddrucker's restaurant.

"It would price skew more toward a Fuddrucker's, but our quality will be every bit as good as theirs or Red Robin. It's just going to be a really fun atmosphere," Rutkauskas said.

And the Tulsa-based company is putting the first one at 111th St. and Memorial. It's due to open in April, less than a year after Rutkauskas first thought of it.

Certainly there's no arguing with Camille's success, and he says with all the lessons they've learned in 10 years, Coney Beach could grow even faster than Camille's did.

"We'll have 100 stores open by 2009. And we think it'll be another $100-million company like Camille's very, very soon," said Rutkauskas.

If he's right, Coney Beach will have it made in the shade.

Coney Beach has already sold three other franchises for the Tulsa area. The exact locations will be decided soon.