Building a better Bubba‘s New Restaurant & bar opens with a laid-back ambiance

April 6, 2005

How do you improve on success? Make it bigger. That’s a dream come true for Bubba’s, one of the most popular casual dining spots in downtown Traverse City. Its tiny location on Grandview Parkway with its long lines and shoulder-to-shoulder seating is just a memory now because Bubba’s has been reborn with a spacious new restaurant and bar on East Front Street.
Launched by Jeff and Trish Wiltse in 2000, Bubba’s quickly became a hit with the lunch bunch in Traverse City, specializing in savory burritos the size of bricks along with tacos, burgers, BBQ pork sandwiches, a selection of homemade soups and jumbo cookies. The fact that Bubba’s emphasis has always been on having some of the lowest prices in town made it even more popular.
All that and more will be available at the new Bubba’s Restaurant & Bar, located in the renovated building which housed the TC Athletic Club (aka “the bikini bar”) at 428 E. Front.
“We’ve added more entrees including steak, shrimp and fish & chips, and we’ve put nachos back on the menu, but everything will be low-priced with most of the food served in baskets,” says Jeff. He adds that the typical diner will be able to get food and a beverage for about $8.

COME AS YOU ARE
Add a full bar to that mix and a spacious, rambling layout that can seat 112 and you’ve got another major destination restaurant in downtown.
Wiltse says the new Bubba’s will be the antithesis of the upscale 310 tapas-inspired restaurant on Cass at the Boardman River which he and Trish launched in 2002. 310 has attracted a dressier crowd; Bubba’s by contrast, aims to be more of a come-as-you-are casual hangout. Think masculine, with seven TV sets playing sports and a bar with an emphasis on beer and shooters, including Bubba’s Brew, an ale crafted locally by the makers of Manitou.
How did the new Bubba’s come about?
“We had been looking for a place for Bubba’s for two or three years even before we opened 310,” Trish says. “We wanted a place with a liquor license and more seats so we could offer dinner.”
Last August, the Wiltses began investigating the possibility of purchasing the TC Athletic Club. At first they were put off by the building: its windows had been blacked over to keep prying eyes out of its bikini dance scene and there didn’t seem to be a lot of inherent charm.
But after uncovering the old single pane windows and the building’s imaginative brickwork, the Wiltses have discovered a diamond in the rough. They’ve made significant upgrades to the site with new woodwork around the bar as well as an earthtone paint scheme, and for old time’s sake the bikini dance pole has been incorporated into the bar for patrons who wish to take a ride down memory lane.
Bubba’s casual ambiance is also expressed in its tables, which were created from recycled desks, taken from the old Architectural Building at the University of Michigan, and from a handsome collection of chairs rescued from a warehouse in Cheboygan where they’ve languished from their heyday in the ‘70s.

STAFF OF 40
With the new restaurant/bar comes a new staff. Manager Jen Foltz and kitchen manager Kyle Harris will supervise a staff of 40, up from eight employees at the old Bubba’s. Jen also supervises Grand View Catering, now in its third year, which handles hundreds of accounts, including that of Frog Pond Village, the wedding garden in Interlochen. “We cater everything from lunches to weddings and funerals,” Jen says. “Anytime you need to eat well, we can feed you.”
Taken as a whole, the new Bubba’s and 310 are the summation of a long odyssey in local dining for the Wiltses. Jeff got his start merchandising a homemade salsa back in 1991 while he and his partner were still waiting tables at Dill’s Old Town Saloon. He went onto other ventures such as providing the eats at a long-gone blues club at Timberlee on the west side of Traverse City, and then opening Exquisite Edibles, the predecessor to Bubba’s. Trish, with her accounting and business skills, was his controller at Exquisite Edibles and the two married in 1998, opening The Dish restaurant in downtown TC the same year. They sold The Dish in 2002 to open 310.
There have been other dining ventures along the way, and given the Wiltses’ track record, it seems likely there will be more to come. But for the present, the new Bubba’s Bar & Restaurant is the main thing happening on the Wiltses’ plate, and given the buzz around town on its opening, it’s likely to be a huge hit.

-- by Robert Downes