Twin Peaks Restaurant/ OdorExpert Success Story

Background

Twin Peaks Restaurant has three locations in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area and plans to continue growing rapidly by franchising in the future. The concept is a mountain lodge themed sports bar with an attractive all female staff. The facilities have patios and eating and drinking outdoors is an important part of the experience.

The quality food, moderately priced beer and scantily clad staff draws large crowds and consequently uses lots of parking spaces. Twin Peaks wants to be perceived as a desirable neighbor and tenant in the shopping centers where they operate. Their strategies for accomplishing this include extreme attention to detail in sanitation and facility maintenance.

Challenge

The company’s original location in Lewisville, Texas was plagued with a nearly constant odor during the remodeling before it opened. It could be smelled on and off in the ladies room, kitchen, bar and right side of the dining room. Management was baffled and after thoroughly cleaning the restaurant, installed deodorizers in the restrooms and sprayed the dining room before opening each day.

Upon opening the restaurant became unpopular with adjacent tenants due to parking problems. Soon those complaints turned into odor complaints and the shopping center manager began calling the local health department complaining of unsanitary conditions causing sever odor problems. Health inspections could not find fault with the restaurant’s sanitation so the management company began to blame the grease trap. It must be faulty.
An eye doctor was located adjacent to Twin Peaks and threatened to cancel their lease due to the odor. A letter was written to Twin Peaks by the landlord indicating the restaurant would be held liable for damages. The doctor’s office had a fresh air intake above the rear door very close to the Twin Peaks grease trap. Twin Peaks management was very concerned and spent over $10,000 on plumbers, consultants and grease trap pumping. They even cut an extra manhole in their grease trap lid to ensure thorough access for cleaning. Nothing seemed to work.

The prospect of potentially closing down was a looming possibility and even overshadowed the customer and staff complaints. Twin Peaks management was willing to try anything. It was affecting the guests’ experience, the restaurant’s reputation and might even cost them their business!

Solution

Luckily Twin Peaks is affiliated with Rockfish and management finally heard about the OdorExpert product, the Eliminator. The vent stacks were cut down and Eliminators were installed on all five roof top vents. In addition, due to the severity of the situation and the location of the grease trap, manhole inserts were also installed. Eventually the shopping center manager installed Eliminators on all vent stacks in that wing of the center.

Results

The odor inside Twin Peaks stopped immediately when Eliminators were installed on its vents. The odor on the patios and next door at the doctor’s office was reduced significantly. The odor was not eliminated from this shopping center until every vent stack on the strip center was equipped with an Eliminator. It has been over a year since an odor was reported. Twin Peaks has since installed the filters on its other location that had a mild and infrequent odor problem. The results were the same. No odor. Twin Peaks has specified Eliminators in all new construction.