J. Alexander’s restaurant to morph into ‘Redlands Grill’

The J. Alexander’s restaurant at 7970 Washington Village Drive is morphing into Redlands Grill.

The restaurant, which has operated as J. Alexander’s since it was founded in 1992, has not changed ownership, and it will retain its current menu items while adding a handful of signature dishes, including Coffee-Cured Ribeye Steak, Jumbo Fried Shrimp and Deconstructed Ice Cream Sundae, Lonnie J. Stout II, president and CEO of J. Alexander’s Holdings Inc., said in a telephone interview.

“Everything that our customers like about J. Alexander’s will still be there” following the transition, Stout said. “Our prime rib, carrot cake and other favorites will stay.”

The rebranded restaurant also will incorporate more “farm-to-table vegetables” into its menu, Stout said. Each Redlands Grill will work with local growers to secure high-quality produce, he said.

Two other J. Alexander’s locations — in the Cincinnati area and in Nashville, where J. Alexander’s Holdings is headquartered — are also rebranding to Redlands Grill locations, Stout said.

J. Alexander’s Holdings operates 41 restaurants in 14 states. It opened its first restaurant in Nashville in 1991, and its Washington Twp. location was only the chain’s third restaurant, and its first outside Tennessee.

“We decided to go to Dayton and give it a shot,” Stout said. “And it was Dayton that gave us the confidence that we could go across the country.”

Plans call for transforming 12 to 14 J. Alexander’s “flagship” locations to Redlands Grill, Stout said. The transition will be gradual: the Dayton-area restaurant still has J. Alexander signage, although menus and a handful of other items, along with a plaque near the front entrance, introduce the Redlands Grill brand.

J. Alexander’s parent company is itself in transition: Its majority owner, Fidelity National Financial, is in the process of spinning off J. Alexander’s Holdings into a public company. The transaction is expected to be complete in about 40 days, but “will have zero impact on the diner experience” in the company’s restaurants, Stout said.

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