Straughan says JCI Grill hopes to target a demographic of 25 to 44 year old individuals, and he hopes bringing Evans on board as a consultant will help the local chain achieve that goal.
"Last year we did the Show Dogs promotion; when we did that, Randy was our first chef in that promotion. He did a very good hot dog for us. When we asked around for chefs, he was the first one that came out on the line. He has been a big fan of ours," Straughan says. "I also highly respected his work from my standpoint. I think Randy is a great chef and he's very good with his knowledge in food. His style of cooking and his way of looking at things could bring some value to our menu and therefore to our customers."
According to Straughan, the new menu items will be unveiled in a majority of the James Coney Island locations in about six to eight weeks. Evans says he will begin with limited time offers of certain items, such as pork sliders glazed with a guajillo chili marinade. This will give JCI and Evans an opportunity to see if the new menu items are accepted by the customers.
Aside from JCI Grill, Evans is also consulting with an upcoming restaurant, Ocean Beach Bar & Grill in Galveston, serving as a spokesperson and recipe consultant for 44 Farms and developing a contract with a Texas-based grocery store seeking to open restaurants inside Houston locations.
"For me it's exciting to start off with a storied company," Evans says. "There's a lot of history and I'm a big history buff, and their ideals and my ideals coincide with one another, and so for me it was an easy decision to begin working with them. It's more than just a big giant company where it's empty faces. These are real people that care about what's going on and care about their staff, and their staff is strong enough to do real food and that's exciting."