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Chicken's coming to empty Hardee's
By BRIDGET HALL GRUMET, Times Staff Writer INVERNESS -- Out with the burgers, in with the chicken. Over the next few months, the empty Hardee's on U.S. 41 N will be remodeled into a Zaxby's restaurant, a Georgia-based chain that specializes in cooked-to-order chicken fingers and buffalo wings. If the permits and renovations go according to plan, the restaurant should open its doors in February or March, owner Ray Goff said. "We know a few folks (in Inverness). We went down and we liked the town," Goff said this week. "It looks like a good fit." Founded in 1990, the Zaxby's chain now has 109 restaurants in Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Kentucky, Tennessee and the Carolinas. The Florida locations include Fernandina and Jacksonville. While wings and battered chicken fingers are the restaurant's most popular items, Zaxby's menu also includes sandwich baskets, salads and even cheesecake and key lime pie. Goff bought the old Hardee's at 1231 N U.S. 41 in June for $250,000, according to property appraiser's records. Renovation plans submitted to the city of Inverness show the 3,322-square-foot restaurant seating up to 74 people. Goff owns two Zaxby's locations in southern Georgia, and he is planning to build another in Gainesville early next year. "We'd like to build several more in that area, and my younger brother is moving to Gainesville to oversee them all," he said. Zaxby's is the latest link in the chain invasion of Inverness, where an Applebee's, a Beef O'Brady's and an Outback Steakhouse have all set up shop over the past two years. "I would imagine they're doing gangbusters," Goff said.
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