East Coast Buffalo Wild Wings Franchisee To Install ELAN g! Control Systems in Seven New Locations

First it was Buffalo Wild Wings on the west coast and now it’s Buffalo Wild Wings on the east coast. Stephen Sullivan Jr., a partner of The Antsul Group, is opening seven new Buffalo Wild Wings locations throughout New Jersey and will use the ELAN g! Control System in each of them to control 50-plus TVs, the lighting systems and surveillance cameras.

“When we opened our first Buffalo Wild Wings in New Jersey in 2009, we had a fully-capable control system installed — or so we thought,” said Sullivan. “After using it for a couple of months, we realized what a hassle it was to keep walking over to the equipment rack to change the channel every five minutes. We want our restaurants to be absolutely the best they can be, both for our employees and for our customers. So before we began construction at our second location, we met with the team at Serious Audio Video, and told them we wanted to control the TVs from an iPad and our iPhones.”

Casey S. Johnston, President of Union City & Hoboken, New Jersey-based Serious Audio Video Inc., knew there was only one solution to satisfy Sullivan’s needs — the IP-based ELAN g! Control System. As soon as Johnston showed Sullivan the g!Mobile app on an iPad, Sullivan knew they had to have it. The ELAN g! System is built around an intuitive GUI that works similarly on all matter of devices, whether using an iPhone, iPad, laptop, an On-Screen-Display (OSD) on a TV, or even on a POS (point-of-sale) terminal.

“Casey came in and showed us the g! iPad app, and we were blown away,” said Sullivan. “We didn’t know there was a system like this. It not only makes managing our 50-plus TVs easy, it also lets us control our lighting and watch our security camera feeds remotely, which is huge for us since we’re opening so many new locations. Now I’m going to be able to check on our Bridgewater restaurant while I’m at another grand opening 50 miles away. Finally, I don’t have to think, ‘I can’t be in two places at once.’ I can be in seven places at once!”

The Antsul Group’s new Bridgewater Buffalo Wild Wings location features 35 50-inch and three 60-inch LCD HDTVs, eight 100-inch projection screens and one 200-inch projection screen. The system streams audio and video from 12 sources, including DirecTV, cable and music services. The control devices include an iPad, all the POS terminals and an ELAN TS-7 touch panel that is built right into the rack in the control room. The brain of the system is the ELAN HC-6 controller, which handles information from 60 IR talk-back emitters. The audio system distributes to three zones and a total of 41 Community Pro speakers, including ceiling-mounted “cloud systems”, which include a large subwoofer surrounded by four speakers.

“With all of the technology in our restaurant, it could be overwhelming to try to manage it all, but our new control system really lessens the workload,” said Sullivan. “The ELAN g! Control System makes everything smoother and faster, so it allows my managers to focus on the staff and making sure we have the happiest customers. After all, keeping our customers happy is the whole point.”

Sullivan is one of the first Buffalo Wild Wings franchisees to incorporate the ELAN g! Control System, along with a California owner who recently began using the system in three of his locations. And now Johnston believes that more restaurant and business owners will begin to see how this affordable, modular control system can benefit their businesses.

Johnston is so confident in the ELAN g! System that he is building a customized ELAN g! showroom at the Serious Audio Video corporate office in Union City, and he wants the system to be his main automation and control product for both residential and commercial applications. “The ELAN g! Control System brings everything together. It works in the home, and it works in doctor’s offices, restaurants and hotels. Now that everyone is familiar with touch screen devices, the simplicity and familiarity of this system really make it the one to beat. And it’s become so affordable that customers don’t need to be convinced, they just need to be shown.”

Available starting at $1860 for a single-room, four sub-system control solution, the ELAN g! Series Control System can be expanded quickly and cost-effectively to enable whole-home control of every room appliance. ELAN g! provides users with the most uniform and intuitive icon-based control from their favorite devices, including TVs, touch screens, touchpads, PCs, iPhones, and iPads. The standardized interface works across platforms, so that the trendy g!Mobile app users love on the iPhone appears and works similarly on ELAN touch screens, valets and handheld remotes as well as users' televisions and mobile devices. And the system's IP backbone makes it just as easy to control the system from across the room - or across the globe.

Buffalo Wild Wings Franchisee Uses ELAN g! To Master 62 TVs With The Touch Of A Button

Brett Babick, David and Mike Gianascoli, and Chris Paphites, the partners of Desert Wings, LLC, can turn on, set up and change the channel on all 62 TVs at once at each of their three Southern California Buffalo Wild Wings locations, and all from an iPod touch with the ELAN g! Control System.  With this innovative system, it doesn’t take a whole team of employees to manage and constantly change the channel on 62 TVs, which was precisely the problem they had in a restaurant they previously owned.

“In the old restaurant, we used a system that we thought gave us top-of-the-line video distribution and control,” recalled Babick.  “All the TVs were physically controlled from a central point, where we had to walk over and manually switch to control a specific TV set, then change the channel for just that set.  In an establishment like Buffalo Wild Wings, we can have up to 70 TVs showing almost a dozen different sporting events, so any time a customer asks us to change the channel it was incredibly inconvenient and time consuming to manually identify and adjust each TV.”

So when they decided to open three new Buffalo Wild Wings locations in Southern California, they turned to Craig Curran at Smart Systems Technologies (SST) to design a fluid, simple-to-operate audio/video system, based on the ELAN g! Control System.  With an innovative interface that is uniform across all platforms, including iPhones, iPads, PCs and even retail POS (point-of-sale) terminals, ELAN g! provides users with incredibly simple control over the entire audio/video system, and can even expand to control lighting and monitor surveillance cameras.

“I came into Brett’s previous restaurant and showed him how we could improve the system and make it much simpler to use and manage,” Curran said. “We agreed that embracing new, better technology in the three new locations would be the best thing for him and his customers, and would remove some of the hassle and headaches.”

“As soon as Craig changed the channel from a handheld device he had, I was sold,” said Babick.  “Now, we have select employees who can access the A/V control system through 10 or more POS terminals and the manager can even control the TVs with an iPod touch we bought for each restaurant! Thanks to the POS integration, we can control the system from more than a dozen spots.  We used to literally use hand signals to relay customer requests, and a manager or I would have to leave the floor.  Now with our new system, the instant a customer asks us to change a TV, it’s done.   Some customers have actually said ‘Wow, how did you do that?’ when they saw us use the iPod.  Now there’s no leaving the restaurant floor, no time wasted.”

Thanks in part to the ELAN g! system, Babick believes that they’ve “got the best Buffalo Wild Wings in the country.”  In fact, one of their locations is ranked one of the company’s top 10 franchises.  In addition to seamless, instant control, they set up the ELAN g! Control System to automatically turn on and set the channel on every TV at 10:30 a.m. before they open, and automatically turn off at midnight when they close. 

One of his favorite features is the ability to display personal marketing messages right on the TVs. “Now we can run a ‘ticker’ on the bottom of any TV we want, just like ESPN does. We use it to promote specials and let customers know what games are coming up, and it really adds a sense of professionalism whenever you see that on the screen,” Babick remarked.

Desert Wings’ Buffalo Wild Wings locations have up to 62 TVs, including up to a dozen 11-foot and one 13-foot HD projection screens and up to 49 HD LCD TVs, most of which are 55” LG sets.  He can show 16 different video feeds at once, combining 10 DirecTVÒ receivers and a DVD player as well as internal marketing programming. The ELAN g! Control System also controls the restaurants’ audio systems, which have up to 30 speakers in six discrete zones, allowing customers to listen to music in one section and the big game’s play-by-play in another.

Curran sees the ELAN g! Control System as one of the best new tools for business owners as well as installers.  “The price point and ability to duplicate installations are making media integration and distribution more available for the mass market,” he remarked.  “And it’s the same with automation.  Not having to custom program subsystems and graphical user interfaces makes it much more attractive and infinitely simpler to use.  You can control everything – security, surveillance, lighting, heating and air conditioning, audio/video systems – right from your PC, iPhone or iPod.  Automation has never been easier, or as affordable.”

The ELAN g! Series Home Control System provides users with the most uniform and intuitive icon-based control from their favorite devices, including TVs, touch screens, touch pads, PCs, iPhones, and iPads. The standardized interface works across platforms, so that the trendy g!Mobile app users love on the iPhone appears and works similarly on ELAN touch screens, valets and handheld remotes as well as users' televisions and mobile devices. And the system's IP backbone makes it just as easy to control the system from across the room as across the globe.