Illinois man picks Cape Girardeau for new Teriyaki Madness location

Chase Porter of Du Quoin, Illinois, has owned a bar in the nearby town of Tamaroa for the last seven years as a side gig. In early January, however, he sold his eponymous Porter’s Pub to focus more on his position as owner of Teriyaki Madness in Cape Girardeau, which opened Dec. 20.

“I didn’t mind working, but I kind of wanted to be my own boss. I tell people I quit my 40-hour-a-week job to work 60 hours a week, and 60 hours is probably modest a lot of the time,” Porter said.

Porter manages the Japanese fast-casual restaurant with the help of his fiancée, Cassie Chumley — who also helped him run his pub — as well as numerous employees.

“It’s kind of bittersweet. I couldn’t do both. We’re just busy here, and this requires a full focus,” he said.

Teriyaki Madness is a Denver-based company with more than 160 locations across 40 U.S. states and Mexico. Porter’s Cape Girardeau franchise is the company’s second in Missouri. The only other one is in Kansas City.

Porter said the other closest Teriyaki Madness locations to Cape Girardeau are north in Springfield, Illinois; south in Nashville, Tennessee; and east in Newburgh, Indiana. He visited the Newburgh restaurant when first considering the franchise.

“Tried it, loved it, and from that point on it was TMAD all the way,” Porter said. “… The corporate team kept telling me it sells itself. Get it into the person’s mouth, it sells itself; they come back.”

He had been interested in owning some kind of business and browsed different car washes, storage units, rental properties and other restaurants. Once he decided on opening a Teriyaki Madness, he looked at different locations in Illinois, Kentucky and the St. Louis suburbs before choosing Cape Girardeau.

“I vetted all of it and I chose Cape over any one of them places. Cape is where I’ve always come to do things,” he said.

The majority of what the restaurant sells is chicken bowls. Customers pick their rice, vegetables, protein and spice levels, and while Teriyaki Madness offers salmon, steak and tofu, some 75% of orders include chicken.

Porter estimated more than 80% of customers carry out their orders, though many do eat inside. He markets through social media and billboard ads.

He said the biggest difference between running his new restaurant and running the bar is the volume of customers.

“Cape Girardeau has welcomed the heck out of us,” Porter said. “… We would do low, steady volume at the bar, 30 to 40 customers a day. That’s what a bar looks like, especially in a really small town. Here, we do 30 customers before 10:30, and we open at 10. We’re doing here in 20 minutes what my bar did in four hours.”

Located at 3320 Campster Drive, the Cape Girardeau Teriyaki Madness location is open 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. daily.

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