Dave's Vacation Plans

“Adult Forward”

The KeyLime’s proposed 64,500-square-foot indoor waterpark is medium sized by industry standards, but 12 times the size of a typical hotel pool area. The investment team plans to spend serious money on equipment that will ensure superior air and water quality. Noise levels will be reduced through sound-absorbing materials. One of the park’s main features will be a “lazy river” that winds through the surroundings, creating an island effect. Guests can lay back and relax as the current carries their inner tubes “down river” and through the wave pool.

Another feature will be the interactive play structure, geared to early teens and preteens. “Here, there will be lots of climbing features, similar to indoor play structures at Chuck E. Cheese or McDonald’s,” Burrow says—except, of course, for the water part. This structure will be housed on an island and include squirt guns and a large bucket of water that intermittently spills, spraying water throughout the area. Amenities will also include several slides, one large enough for an entire family to shoot down together, a raft ride, activity pool with basketball hoops, as a well as a kiddy pool and a whirlpool. On the drier side, there will also be a 6,000-square-foot indoor arcade that includes virtual-reality games for older kids.

It all sounds very family friendly—good, clean fun. But the KeyLime won’t be entirely kid-centric. “We are catering to all age levels,” Burrow says of the waterpark. So KeyLime Cove will also feature a 4,700-square-foot luxury spa that will offer massage therapy, facials, manicures, and the like. It will cater to men as well as women. The hotel will also house a fitness center, as well as a ceramic studio where kids and adults can paint, glaze, and fire pre-made pottery.

Anderson says that KeyLime Cove Resort will have an “adult-forward strategy.” In other words, he and his partners will put more time and effort into food creation, quality, and service than is typically done for this type of venue. While the restaurant prototypes in Hayward are spendy propositions, “it is more expensive to do change orders when you are doing a huge development like this, especially in Chicago,” Anderson says. “It’s well worth the investment to get the bugs worked out ahead of time so we know how each restaurant is going to function.”

Ultimately, the hotel will have three main restaurants plus a food court. D. W. Anderson’s Old Fashioned Eatery and Ice Cream Parlor harks back to Anderson’s Chicago childhood. “There was a restaurant on the North Side that burned down called The Buffalo,” he recalls. “You could go get homemade hand-pattied burgers with fresh-cut French fries. Then at the end of the meal, you could order an incredible ice cream creation. It was where everyone went after a football game, or after church. It was a well-known landmark restaurant.” Anderson spent the past 10 years visiting similar landmark restaurants across the country, taking photographs and tasting what each had to offer. “I’ve been working on the recipes [for D. W. Anderson’s] in earnest for the past five years,” he says. “Just the recipes alone!”

Anderson’s other concept, the Crazy Toucan Margarita Grill, will be (not surprisingly) a coastal-themed restaurant with Key West flair. Menu offerings will include coconut-crusted shrimp, pineapple salsa, and fish tacos. By day, the Crazy Toucan will cater to families, but at night the Toucan will preen its feathers to provide a place for adults to let go and get crazy—in a family-friendly sort of way. “It will be home to our dueling pianos gone wild,” Anderson says. “It’s kind of like karaoke because people tend to sing along.” (Anderson’s third restaurant concept, Bahama Mama’s Coffee House, will be a combined coffee, bakery, and candy shop, but its development isn’t as far along as the other two.)

“Each [restaurant] is a profit center in its own right and each one has a business plan,” Anderson notes. “Typically when building a hotel, a lot of emphasis gets put on the resort, and restaurants are cobbled on later. We’re starting out with a fully developed vision, where every amenity was mandated by our team to be fully thought out with its own business plan—just as if we were rolling them out across the country. We didn’t add a restaurant just because we thought we needed a restaurant.” The KeyLime team didn’t seek out existing restaurants to be a part of the resort because, as Anderson says, “Americans are all chained out.”

Interestingly, if these restaurants are successful, Anderson says he might roll out the concepts nationwide. Could they become as famous as Famous Dave’s? Much depends on how famous Dave’s vacation plans become.