MUNCIE, Ind. (NewsLink) - A new restaurant opened in the Village last week to provide new and familiar flavors for Ball State students to enjoy.
Yats is an Indianapolis based food chain that sells spicy cajun-creole food. They have expanded to 14 other locations across the midwest, but are still the most popular in their founding state.
Daniel Tasson, the Muncie location’s general manager, said that he was excited to open the new addition to the franchise so close to Ball State.
“I knew years ago before there was even a Yats here that this would be the perfect campus for a Yats and the reason why is because there is such a large Indianapolis based student population that lives up here that grew up with Yats and I knew that they’d want to get that taste of home when I came up here,” said Tasson.
The new restaurant opened six days ago and has already been a huge success.
“Record breaking sales. We’ve had the busiest opening of any Yats ever on the first day… Our sales have increased progressively until Sunday where it kind of leveled off a little bit, but as you can see it’s constantly people flowing in and out of the restaurant. It seems like it’s actually giving people a reason to come down to the Village,” said Tasson.
Nate Webber, a customer, agreed that the restaurant has become very popular very quickly.
“Absolutely. There was, like, a lot on Twitter, people retweeting ‘Yats is now open.’ This is actually my second time here ever and I came back within the same week so it’s pretty popular,” Webber said.
The Village has been known as a high turnover area, but Tasson stated that while it can be bad for some businesses, he feels like it will be a successful investment for Yats.
“It has been risky to open businesses. I ran a business just a block away a year ago that was not as successful, but it didn’t have the same price point and it didn’t have the familiarity that Yats has especially with people from Indiana. So, I think that this is going to be a mainstay for the Village and I think it’s going to bring a lot more business down to the Village... I’m hoping that when people see us down here, they get a chance to go, not just here, but to all of the different businesses in the Village,” Tasson said.
Webber agrees.
“I think based off the hours that they say they are going to be open and the fact that the food is really filling and it’s not super expensive, it’ll be around for a while.”
And for anyone that isn’t sure if they want to try the new restaurant, Webber validated that it is worth it to try it.
“It’s fantastic. It can be a little intimidating at first if you’ve never had cajun food, but it’s phenomenal.”
