Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Texas Roadhouse is scheduled to open its Clovis location in March.
Three well-known franchise restaurants are under construction in Clovis, a sign of growing confidence in the city's economic base, according to Tina Dziuk, executive director of the Clovis Economic Development Corporation.
The largest of the three restaurants is the Texas Roadhouse, located next to Applebee's restaurant in the 500 Block of East Llano Estacado Boulevard.
A sign proclaiming "Texas Roadhouse" was spread across the middle of the two-story high front entrance on Thursday, and U.S. and Texas flags were flying from the front wall.
Texas Roadhouse spokesperson McKenzie DelVisco said the Clovis outlet is expected to open in March after being under construction since September.
Dickey's Barbecue, a Dallas-based barbecue franchise, announces on its website that its Clovis store at 2417 North Prince St., is "opening soon."
Attempts to reach Dickey's or Preferred Painting, the local contractor doing work at the site, were unsuccessful.
Dickey's is under construction on the site of the former Kripple Creek restaurant in Clovis.
Dickey's also operates an outlet at 1001 W. 18th St., Portales.
The third franchise is Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen, which specializes in chicken and side dishes, under construction in the 3100 block of North Prince Street.
Construction began at this site about a month after the building permit was issued in June, according to Pete Wilt of the Clovis Building Safety Department.
Popeyes communications did not respond to email requests for information on a proposed opening date. Kimber Parsons, a contract administrator for White Sands Construction of Alamogordo, which is building the outlet, said company policy prohibits talking about work sites.
A drive by the site on Thursday revealed that construction is still at ground-level. No walls had gone up.
Popeyes operates an outlet at Cannon Air Force Base.
Dzuik said in a text message the presence of new franchise restaurants "is a good sign."
"It means these companies know we have the base to support them, and Covid-19 is mostly behind us," she wrote.
Her message also stated new franchises, as well as new ownership at the North Plains Mall in Clovis, are evidence of "a fresh effort to recruit more retail" into the city.
The effort, she said, will be aided by newly available Local Economic Development Act incentives for retailers, which she said, "may be the determining factor" for a retailer deciding between Clovis and another location.
