Metro Roundup: MOOYAH moves into Hoover with new design

There’s another new brand of burger in Hoover.

Denney Barrow, his son Jordan and daughter-in-law Carrie opened MOOYAH Burgers, Fries & Shakes in the Stadium Trace Village shopping center on Feb. 10.

It’s their third location in the Birmingham area. They first opened a MOOYAH restaurant in the Shops at the Colonnade about eight years ago and then followed up with one at the University of Alabama at Birmingham Medical Plaza about seven years ago.

Those two locations are doing well, and now, they’re excited about the opportunity to come to Hoover, Jordan Barrow said.

The Stadium Trace Village shopping center is in a prime location, surrounded by residential developments and is near to the Riverchase Galleria and the Hoover Metropolitan Complex, both of which draw many visitors.

This MOOYAH restaurant is sandwiched into a 2,400-square-foot space between the Wrapsody gift boutique and O’Henry’s Coffee, behind the ALDI grocery store.

MOOYAH serves hamburgers with never frozen, certified Angus beef, and they bake their own bread, Barrow said. There also are non-traditional options for buns, including potato buns, wheat buns and hamburgers wrapped in lettuce.

In addition to beef hamburgers, MOOYAH serves turkey burgers, vegan burgers, hot dogs, chicken fingers, salads, milkshakes and handcut Idaho and sweet potato fries.

The Barrows, who live off Caldwell Mill Road in north Shelby County, originally got their start in the residential development and home building business. Denney Barrow started his development company in 1972 and stayed in the business until 2008, when the housing industry hit hard times.

The Barrows wanted to continue having a family-owned business, so they became franchisees for MOOYAH. In 2008, the “better burger market” was the fastest growing segment of the restaurant business, so they went that route.

Sometimes franchises get labeled as a big corporation, but that’s really not the case, Barrow said. “A franchise is sort of the new small business,” he said.

This MOOYAH restaurant will seat close to 100 people, but it has a brand new design for the MOOYAH chain and will be the first restaurant to open with it. “It’s a totally different feel from our other restaurants,” Jordan Barrow said.

There’s a new logo design and color scheme, a closed kitchen with new technology to speed up production, a new look and seating arrangements for the dining area, a digital menu, and new furniture and lighting.

“We wanted to update the look,” said Tony Darden, who became MOOYAH’s new president about nine months ago. “It hadn’t been updated in quite some time.”

Barrow said the new restaurant design has a more mature feel to it.

Another big change is the addition of a dedicated area for pickup for online orders by both customers and delivery drivers. This is due to the increased amount of pickup and delivery in the restaurant business, Darden said.

On average, about 30 percent of MOOYAH’s business is pickup or delivery, which is more than double what it was five years ago.

“It more mirrors the way society is trending in terms of convenience,” Darden said. “Everything is ordered and delivered now.”

This design will be used in other MOOYAH restaurants going forward, and many existing ones will be renovated with the new design, Darden said. Jordan Barrow said his family plans to put the new design in their other restaurants in the next five years.

They own the MOOYAH franchise for all of Alabama and hope to expand to 10 or 12 restaurants ultimately. They opened one in Tuscaloosa but ended up closing it.

Darden said he visited the Hoover location a few months back and thinks it is a good site. The Barrow family members are tremendous partners, and he said the company is thrilled to partner with them.

Barrow said his family hoped to hire 40 people to work at the Hoover restaurant, including Manager Shawn West.

MOOYAH Burgers, Fries & Shakes was founded in 2007. It is based in Plano, Texas, and now has 86 locations, including one in Canada and two each in Bahrain, Oman and Qatar. See more on the MOOYAH website.