The
owner of P.J. Whelihan’s wants to bring his brand to Birmingham Township.

Bob
Platzer made a preliminary presentation to the Board of Supervisors during its
Dec. 19 meeting. He said he wants to move into the former Bull Durham’s
location, a stand-alone pad at Dilworthtown Crossing.

The location was a Bennigan’s
before being a Bull Durham’s and that will affect the operating conditions at
the new restaurant, according to township solicitor Kristen Camp.

There were more restrictions on
Bull Durham’s, she said, because there was live entertainment there. Camp told
Platzer that he could avoid those restrictions by not having live music.

Platzer said he would prefer
the hours that Bennigan’s had, 8 a.m. to 2 a.m., so he would not request having
live music on a regular basis. He did reserve to the right to change later on.
He said he would go back to the supervisors for permission to have an acoustic
guitar player should he want to have one play.

He also said after he meeting
that his actual operating hours would be 11 a.m. to 2 a.m. Whelihan’s is not a
breakfast establishment.

Platzer described the
restaurants in his 14-restaurant chain as “neighborhood pubs.” He said the idea
is to hire local people to staff the restaurant so their family and friends
become patrons.

He stressed a desire to be part
of the community. His lunchtime crowd tends to be business people, but the
dinner patrons are “families and soccer moms.”

“Our age group is varied; we
cover all the bases. It’s a neighborhood pub. That’s what we bill ourselves as.
We get into the communities; we’re a grassroots type organization. We’re very
involved with the schools [and] different charitable groups. We run a lot of
turkey trots and things like that. We sponsor a lot of runs for different
organizations,” he said.

Whelihan’s also sponsors high
school football through advertising and erecting scoreboards.

Platzer will wait for a letter
from the supervisors before he begins renovating the 6,500 square foot
restaurant. He said the whole process should take 90-120 days and anticipates
an opening in May.

Other business

Supervisors passed the 2012
budget that anticipates revenues of $1,806,000 and expenses of $1,339,000.
There is more than $575,000 being carried over into next year.

The spending plan has no tax
increase — the township millage rate remains 1.6 mills — and there will be no
need for the township to take out a tax anticipation note.