Sam Hughes' Place Championship Dining will close at the end of business Friday.
Once the last of the customers has left and the doors are locked, the restaurant will ditch its name and begin a two-week, nearly $250,000 renovation.
When it reopens on Aug. 24, it will be the Social House Kitchen & Pub, more gastropub than moderately priced steak and chop house, said operations manager Mark Hamby.
"It's still going to be fun on game days, but a totally different restaurant," he said, describing the new concept as casual gastropub.
The extensive renovation will include all new flooring and new tables and booths.
They will tear out the glass wall dividing the dining room and some of the pillars, creating a more open, community feel. The dining room itself will have fewer booths and more tables, including communal areas and tables set up back-to-back.
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"Now it's kind of an '80s steakhouse. We're going to have more of a pubhouse feel," said Hamby, who came to the restaurant two weeks ago after running Sam Fox's Blanco Tacos + Tequila at La Encantada for three years.
Social House - So-Ho for short - will feature a more casual, lighter menu - sandwiches, tacos, salads and some comfort food dishes like steak - than Sam Hughes Place. Prices will drop, as well, from an average $25 per person to $18, Hamby said.
The renovation comes as Sam Hughes Place, 446 N. Campbell Ave., has seen a dramatic and prolonged drop in its dinner business.
"I think it's kind of run its course and with the cannnibilizations of restaurants in this area - the lunch was good, but the dinner has not been good," Hamby said. "The owners realized they needed to update the concept."
"Everyone drives by us to go somewhere else," he added. "We need to give them reason to stay in the area."
Cathalena E. Burch
