Sportico
The Minds Behind Stuffed Crust and Toasted Subs Tackle Sports Bars
By Brendan Coffey
April 3, 2025
Sports bars are both ubiquitous and one of the most difficult concepts to replicate. There are thousands of one-off sports bars in the country, but sports bar chains have a harder time of it: One of the largest, Hooters, just entered bankruptcy protection this week.
Tom’s Watch Bar, a concept with 16 locations, including one just opened at Seattle’s Climate Pledge Arena, thinks it has devised the magic formula to add another 100 locations in the next few years.
“Make it a little bit nicer, but let’s not go too far,” Tom’s Watch Bar co-CEO Brooks Schaden said on a phone call. “The old perception of sports bars: sticky floors, stale beer and jerseys on the wall. We wanted to bring something modern and fresh, but … $150 Wagyu steaks are not what sports fans want.”
To refresh the sports bar concept, Schaden and his partners at Denver-based SIF Partners are going back to a playbook that has worked well for them multiple times over: Just do a few things—or even one—a bit better than the competition. SIF chairman and Schaden’s cousin, Rick, founded Quiznos and built it to the third-largest sandwich chain in the country at its peak by toasting its buns to separate it from Subway and Blimpie.
The family subsequently founded and later sold Smashburger, which improved on the fast-food hamburger just a bit by caramelizing its beef. Before joining forces with the Schadens, SIF’s chief concept officer Tom Ryan came up with the stuffed crust that gave Pizza Hut a reason to get consumers to drive past mom-and-pop pizzerias.
Tom’s Watch Bar isn’t as one-note as those innovations. Mainly, the goal is to serve better food than fast casual places like Buffalo Wild Wings, have a more attractive layout than a neighborhood joint and keep it (mostly) away from the mall: Schaden’s strategy is to locate adjacent to stadiums and arenas, like Climate Pledge, where three weeks ago SIF and Oak View Group opened the newest location, across the street from the plaza leading up to the turnstiles. Oak View is part owner of the Seattle location.
“Broadening the opportunity to connect and extend the arena experience develops deeper fan engagement that we hope extends for generations,” Josh Pell, Oak View’s president of premium experiences and global strategy, said in an email.
Oak View isn’t alone in seeing Tom’s as a way to broaden the appeal of an arena. A study this week by The Emerging Fund as part of its plan to deploy $100 million in sports-themed eateries finds many stadiums have plenty of potential real estate development given foot traffic, presence of white collar workers, good average income and population growth. The Emerging study, done with Cobroker.ai, cites 20 stadiums, including Citi Field, Fenway Park and Angel Stadium of Anaheim, as excellent candidates—all where owners desire to develop lightly used real estate around the parks. Emerging Fund isn’t affiliated with SIF (though Tom’s is a client of Emerging’s restaurant data businesses).
In the case of Tom’s, Schaden says teams are eager partners given the chain’s ability to bring in crowds even when there isn’t an event at the venue. They’ve gotten so good at it, Schaden says teams are now paying the company to organize and promote watch parties to draw people to the area on off nights.
Part of the chain’s success are consumer tailwinds—a fracturing of methods and channels where sports can be watched, a rising interest in niche sports and sports betting, and the industry shift toward ballpark villages, the neighborhood-like developments adjacent to arenas that seek to draw in consumers on occasions other than the ballgame.
It’s been good for Tom’s business: During March Madness some locations have preopening lines to get in, with 10 a.m. mimosas doing gangbusters volume. The Denver location, near Coors Field, is not only packed ahead of first pitch, but now sees college football and NFL Sunday business surpass Rockies games.
“If you stop in and grab a beer, you’re most likely a fan of something else sports-related. We find we get them to come back,” Schaden explains.
Tom’s makes itself attractive in subtle ways. One rule: TVs are always clustered—never just one on any wall—to make sure plenty of different events are shown. Another: No booths—they make it hard to get a community feel. The floorplan is populated with loose furniture and lots of high tops instead. The menu appeals to a broader restaurant goer, too, with poke bowls, hummus and fish tacos available along with burgers, wings, and mac and cheese.
The food, the layout and the rise of women’s sports means Tom’s draws about half women these days, better than a typical watering hole.
A mistake Schaden sees in some sports bar concepts is going too upscale, like Philadelphia’s Bankroll, a now-shuttered $25 million sports betting-focused restaurant that management felt was too good for nachos, according to one report. Schaden also says his chain has operational innovations that mean servers are always in their area and the food and drinks come swiftly even during the pregame rush. The sports emphasis also means staff aren’t trying to turn tables.
“People are going to show up and watch games for several hours. In the restaurant business that’s normally taboo, and it’s one of the reasons we think a lot of restaurant companies have stayed away from this segment,” Schaden explains.
The high margins on alcohol help. “You’ll go to a restaurant and eat once and drink once, maybe twice. At Tom’s they’re coming in and eating once and drinking maybe five, six times.”
With upwards of 4 million customers to date, Tom’s locations have become cash cows. The smallest outlet does $4 million in annual revenue, while its largest does $15 million. Unlike most chain concepts, Schaden says he isn’t too focused on making new cookie-cutter outlets in terms of size, but expects the average location will produce about $6 million sales going forward on a footprint of roughly 10,000 square feet or so. He aims to open four or five more locations this year, part of a plan to have more than 100 in five years’ time.
“Sports is all about community. Anybody can watch it at home, but people come out because they want to be part of the crowd and be part of an experience,” Schaden said. “The underlying goal in the whole brand is to cater to what people are watching and be that hub for the sports community.”
