Local Round Table undergoing remodeling
Wendy Alexander/The Madera Tribune
Round Table is undergoing remodeling and will reopen Wednesday with regular hours. They will only offer delivery after 4 p.m. today and all day Tuesday.
For the first time since it opened, Madera’s Round Table Pizza is undergoing a remodeling. Owner Bill Dawson opened the restaurant in 1986 and his restaurant is gutted except for flooring and tables and chairs in preparation for a new look at the beginning of August.
“It is the first remodel and it will be the last,” Dawson said.
Round Table will only offer delivery after 4 p.m. today, all day Tuesday and will reopen with regular hours Wednesday.
“I have tile that has to come up,” Dawson said. “It is also very dirty and dusty. I have to close off my kitchen area. I am only doing delivery because we can go out the back door. They are doing me a favor by coming in the nighttime to do it. They can’t get it all done in one night. I’m not going to open up the dining area Tuesday because it will still need to get done. We’ll be open Wednesday, but we’ll still look like the middle of a remodel.”
Dawson said he has been thinking about doing a remodel for about a year, but a corporate mandate made the remodel possible.
“Corporate makes it mandatory that if you want to renew your agreement, if your restaurant is more than 10 years old, you have two years to invest $50,000 in improvements,” Dawson said. “What they are trying to do is get more and more Round Tables to get a more consistent, upscale look. This is the only way to do it. All the stores are going to do it. They have three concepts — clubhouse, conventional and wings and brew. Each concept has its own guidelines. They tell me what color to put on what wall and the materials we use have to approved by Round Table and there’s usually one choice. I have to use linoleum tile and carpet by certain brands and colors.”
By the time the remodel is done, Round Table will incorporate a new pizza buffet and will have new tables and chairs.
“We expect to be done the first week of August,” Dawson said. “I have a brand new salad bar coming in. I have a new Pepsi machine coming in where the old salad bar is. I have a buffet line coming in where the Pepsi machine was. I have a cushioned bench coming in. The meeting room will be divided by an accordion door so I can have two meetings in there. I will have an enclosed game room.”
There will also be a variety of tables and chairs, but he will be losing the seating of 24 people because of a game room.
“The capacity was supposed to be the same,” Dawson said. “There will be three tall bar booths. There will be some low bench seats. There will be a few tall tables. There will also be a tall table that will accommodate 10 people.”
Dawson said the game room will be filled with machines that usually hand out tickets. However, these machines will print tickets that show the amount of tickets you won.
“You go online, pull up the menu and you see products,” he said. “You enter your credits and the prize gets mailed to your door. I won’t have to deal with products here.”
Dawson hopes Round Table will have to be closed, at the most, three days.
“I know I have to be closed for the floor two or three days,” he said. “I’m going to be closed a day and a half when they put the floor down. I’ll be down another day or two when they put the floor in. I am hoping to be able to do pickup, but I have to figure out how to get them into the building.”
