Bob Basham’s brother told him a long time ago, people would always eat, and they’d drink, too. So being in the restaurant business wasn’t such a bad spot to land.
This was the early 1970s and Basham took him at his word in a Washington, D.C. eatery. A couple of years later, in 1973, Steak and Ale arrived in Virginia and Basham met Norman Brinker. He went to work for the famed restaurateur along with Jeff Newman, who Basham ultimately introduced to his brother, Richard Danker, and Bob Garner. In 1996, the trio opened Glory Days Grill, which celebrated its 30th anniversary this April, in Burke, Virginia.
In between, Basham would join Chris Sullivan, Trudy Cooper, and Tim Gannon, to cofound Outback Steakhouse in March 1998. And he’d help get Tampa-based fast casual PDQ off the ground in 2011. Danker was an original investor in Outback and owned steakhouse concept Danker’s in D.C. and Dank’s Deli (now Middleburg Deli) in Virginia.
Basham got involved with Glory Days as a franchisee in 2013. He was looking to rebrand Lee Roy Selmon’s, a now-defunct chain he acquired in 2008. Following the Pro Football Hall-of-Famer’s death three years later and family’s desire to exit the space, Basham discovered an outlet to turn Lee Roy Selmon’s into Glory Days versus trying to iterate a new concept. He developed the franchise opportunity alongside Carrabba’s veteran Jesse McPherson.
But one thing Basham hadn’t quite done, not since he and Danker clocked time together at their older brother’s D.C. restaurant those decades ago, was run a company in tandem.
That moment surfaced in the summer of 2022. Garner and Newman wanted to retire. Danker didn’t. In stepped Basham, who acquired the company’s then-22-unit corporate footprint in Virginia and Maryland and added it to his 15 Florida and Georgia Glory Days under new corporate parent company Play Ball USA.
Basham says it’s been rewarding and “kind of something that we would never have imagined, but it’s just the way things ended up.”
“It was almost like a dream come true getting to work together again years later,” he says.
Glory Days, as you’d imagine, had its COVID tales to endure. Fortuitously, the company switched to Olo a couple months prior, which made jumping from 10–15 percent off-premises to 100 percent a bit easier. Maryland and Virginia locations dealt with layoffs of roughly 1,500 employees and had to convert managers into various roles, including cooks.
Eventually, restaurants emerged from the mud and Glory Days played a role in forming the Maryland Restaurant Coalition to address pressing mandates.
And these days, Basham says, Glory Days finds itself at a much more enviable spot. It got to 30 years by leaning in as a family friendly, quality-first operation that enables customers to experience Glory Days as they see fit. There are sports on big-screen TVs. Yet also, food that’s made to order with top-shelf ingredients. Glory Days doesn’t use seed oils. There are fish fries. Seasonal offerings. And very little along the veto vote trail.
When the brand turned 30, it rolled a special anniversary menu that included a $30 bucket of 30 wings, French onion dip, mushroom truffle burger, Korean BBQ wings, 10-ounce pork chop, crispy chicken sandwich, molten lava cake, and drink deals.
On April 16—the day it was founded—Glory Days hosted an anniversary blowout at its flagship restaurant and offered wings for 96 cents across the portfolio, as well as $3 signature “Homerun Ritas” while loyalty members collected 30 free points. Community members, longtime guests, and brand leaders showed up as 90s music played.
Today, there are 36 restaurants and the same focus around creating a welcoming atmosphere.
If there’s one thing every restaurant operator can attest to, Basham says, it’s this sector spins in cycles. Basham has seen his turns since meeting Brinker 53 years ago.
Now, as inflation persists and commodities become more expensive, food, gas, retail, and otherwise, at the end of the day, he says, people still want something of great quality. Maybe more so since they’re so aware of what it cost. “They want a great value for it as well, too,” he says. “They want great hospitality. And they want the basics—clean restaurants, hot food hot, and cold food cold. I know that sounds very simple but pulling it off is not as simple.”
The brands managing to do it better than others, Basham continues, are coming out stronger amid ongoing headwinds. “I think we’ve checked a lot of those boxes,” he says of Glory Days.
The playbook remains menu-centric, diverse in offerings, and a multi-occasion vibe.
Basham says today’s restaurant consumer could best be described as “particular.” There is not a lot of margin an operator can spare for the sake of making something cheaper. He feels guests recognize degraded quality over time, as they always have. Trust is something built over years but lost in shifts. “We’ve made sure every time we have a LTO or something like that, it checks the boxes in terms of how it’s perceived, quality wise and everything else,” Basham says. “And that it’s not just some random product that we got real cheap and decided to throw on the menu. People figure it out pretty quickly if you do that.”
Something that has adjusted over the years, however, is how quickly these cycles move. Every shift is tracked in real time and taken to the court of social media.
For restaurants, it’s resulted, among other things, in a need to answer trends and react to competitors. Chili’s for instance, Basham says, has had a very publicized resurgence where peers have either tried to mimic the chain’s success (through value, meal architecture, marketing, etc.) or they tilt the other direction.
Again, though, Basham returns to Glory Day’s foundation. “People still want to go out to eat,” he says. “Families still want to go out to eat. People want to have a good time at a restaurant, and I don’t think that’s changed much. The frequency sometimes changes.”
Industry preference has evolved from fast food to fast casual to now, Basham says, there being a clear chance for full service to promote experience as guest spend tightens. If a group wants to take a break from life, this is a space sit-down restaurant operators can meet them.
And that’s what Basham and Danker have continued to do at Glory Days as it positions for life after 30.
Basham says it took time to settle after the acquisition. It was like building 22 restaurants in a year. “And that’s not the easiest thing,” he explains.
Glory Days had to synergize franchise and corporate stores. It got them on one menu and streamlined processes. With everybody on the same page now, Basham says, Glory Days can pivot to growth. The brand had passed $100 million in systemwide annual sales the year Basham opened Glory Day’s first Georgia restaurant in December 2019.
The brand had early franchise ambitions (led by Basham as you can see here) but had to anchor down during COVID and then work on integrating acquired restaurants.
Going forward, Basham says, Glory Days will be disciplined. Inflation hasn’t merely been a consumer dynamic concerning cost and experience; the ROI on expansion blurred as well.
Basham says there are markets and sites Glory Days could target. But it must consider the investment. The company plans to look a second-generation space and tweak its 6,000-square-foot model to see what fits. It might end up closer to 5,000 or 5,500. It depends on the opportunity.
Either way, Glory Days will stick to its core principles, Basham says.
And personally, for someone who has been in the game since Richard Nixon was president, Basham jokes you can only play so much golf.
He still appreciates the people who created opportunities for him those decades ago and enjoys opening similar windows for young employees who run stores and work hard.
A restaurant is a nuanced orchestra where entrepreneurship and accountability show up together. “Teaching them about leading,” Basham says of what he still gets up for. “When I see that kind of energy, it’s very contagious. And that’s what I get excited about. When we have success and set records and somebody does something that worked really well, there’s a chance to celebrate that with them.”
He appreciates the speed of a never-static industry as well. Technology, for one, has presented some back-of-house benefits Basham feels can make the sector better, quickly. There are accounting and metric reports operators can evaluate and decipher as they happen. In turn, restaurants are able to pivot and be quicker to respond.
Yet hospitality, he says, isn’t going to get swapped for AI. Learning more about customers and being able to recognize who they are and why they show up should transform hospitality to a deeper, interpersonal level. This is still a relationship business, and information helps.
Glory Days is deploying technology regarding feedback on LTOs. It can see how an item performs and if it’s affecting either PPA, guest counts, or something else. And the company makes a much speedier response.
“I think you’re going to see some of that first,” he says. “And who knows where it goes after that. But the human element in restaurants, I don’t think, is ever going to be replaced.”
And for Glory Days, that’s where it will start plotting the next 30 years. Basham says if the brand concentrates on its day one ideals, it’s going to have a “pretty good chance of succeeding” for the coming generation.
“People want a chance to go out and celebrate,” he says. “They want a chance to go out and have a great meal with their family or friends. The hospitality part isn’t going to change. There will always be a place to go if the quality of food is good, the servers and hospitality is good, and all the boxes are checked. That will be timeless.”
