Cedar Rapids Burger King getting new look

Roughly 20 years after it was constructed, a southwest Cedar Rapids fast-food restaurant is getting a major makeover.

The Burger King restaurant at 395 33rd Ave. SW in Cedar Rapids is expected to reopen at the end of this month. Beaton Inc. of Cedar Rapids, which owns 19 Burger King restaurants, is remodeling the interior and exterior of the 3,400-square-foot building.

Perry Beaton, president of Beaton Inc., said the remodeled restaurant will resemble the Burger King at 3030 Mount Vernon Rd. SE when the project is completed.

“We're remodeling it to have the ‘new' Burger King image,” Beaton said. “From now on, all of our remodels will have this same image.”

As Beaton Inc.'s franchise agreements have run out at the end of 20 years, the company has been required to do substantial remodeling of its stores. Beaton said the Iowa City, Muscatine and Marion stores were remodeled along with the Mount Vernon Road SE location after an April 2009 explosion and fire damaged the building.

“We rebuilt the Edgewood Road NW store from scratch because the store was so poorly constructed,” he said. “The 33rd Avenue SW store was built much better, so we decided to just go through an in-depth remodel.

“This fall, we will remodel our store in Clinton and we plan to do some more next year.”

Beaton said G4 Construction Management of Crosslake, Minn., is the general contractor for the 33rd Avenue SW project. The company, which works with local subcontractors, specializes in remodeling fast-food restaurants.

Beaton said the management and front line staff of the 33rd Avenue SW store have been dispersed to other Beaton Inc. locations during the remodeling process, which began Monday.

“We've relocated our entire crew to make sure we can retain them because they're all experienced folks,” he said. “They will be coming back into the restaurant about a week before we reopen to get it restocked and set up the menu boards.

“There's a lot of that little stuff that needs to be done before we can start serving our customers.”