Embracing a Change of Venue | Jeremiah Bullfrogs

Photos by Emma Highfill, Rose Wheat Photography

 “We’ve known for five years that we were going to have to relocate,” said Rob Fateley, owner of Jeremiah Bullfrogs. “Where we were at was purchased by Midwest Health. Their goal with the area is to put in a new shopping center, plus we’d outgrown the place somewhat and either needed to do a major remodel or look for a different spot.” 

 Fateley said that Jeremiah Bullfrogs could have retained a spot in that location and reopened once the new shopping center was built, avoiding a move altogether, but electing to stay would have meant too much downtime for the business. 

“Most likely we would’ve been closed for a year or more,” Fateley said. “At that point you’re just restarting brand new, and we didn’t want to go through a total start-up after having been there for 27 years.” 

The search for a new home started about two and half years ago, Fateley said, and it ended this past July with Bullfrogs reopening just across the street from their old building, in the Villa West Shopping Center. 

“We’d outgrown our old building, so everything worked out in our favor,” Fateley said. “We took the opportunity to expand our kitchen, which we needed to very much, and technology has changed a ton since we started, so we needed an update there. We needed to overhaul the bathrooms and make them bigger, so basically we took a lot of the things we wished we had and focused there.” 

 The new space does indeed feature larger bathrooms, but the improvements don’t end there. The outdoor patio is more spacious, new technology and an optimized kitchen layout allow for food to be served more quickly, and there are now 80 televisions—an array of screens allowing up to 20 different sporting events to be broadcast simultaneously.  “And we’ve got garage doors that can be opened on nicer evenings, so you can still get that view of the TVs inside,” added Faith Pearson, general manager of Jeremiah Bullfrogs. 

If the new space appears to have been carefully set up and perfected down to the last detail, that might be because it was. But in an interesting turn of events, this ‘extra polish’ wasn’t possible in spite of the COVID-19 disruption but rather—in part—because of it. 

“We made the best out of the COVID situation. With that coming around, we took the opportunity to do things right and take our time,” Fateley said, referencing the nationwide shutdown that went into effect roughly a month before the original move date.  

Rather than try to reopen as soon as possible, Fateley and Pearson simply appended the shutdown with their own temporary business closure while they moved and set up in the new space, allowing for a more seamless transition into the new building.  “It didn’t make much sense to reopen for a month and then try to move,” Fately said, “so we actually benefited quite a bit from that downtime.” 

There were some challenges in regards to procuring equipment and furniture, due mostly to COVID-19-related delays in the supply chains, but all-in-all, Fateley and Pearson feel that the final outcome was an optimal one.  “It was a weird deal, but things really do work out for a reason,” Fateley said.  

 July 17 saw the long-awaited grand opening of the new location, and with business back on the rise, the bar and grille is continuing to fill open positions for kitchen positions, servers and bartenders as it looks to a bright year ahead in 2021. 

“The future is going to be really good,” Fateley said. “Topeka is doing amazing things. Downtown, NOTO, Fairlawn, 29th and Wanamaker—there’s a lot of great things happening in Topeka. We’re a secret, but we’re a capital city. Why shouldn’t the capital have the best sports bar in the state, if not the Midwest? And that’s really our goal.”