My Space: Walk-On’s Enterprises’ corporate office

There’s no doubt that Walk-On’s is positioning itself to become a major player in the sports bar world—not just in Baton Rouge, but across the country. With a new scaled-down location on the horizon downtown and the owners scouting franchising opportunities across the Southeast, one might think the Walk-On’s day-to-day is all work and no play.

But if you take a stroll into the restaurant and bar’s corporate office on Third Street downtown, you might wonder how the heck these guys are getting any work done.

“We’re a sports bar, and we like having fun,” President and Chief Operations Officer Scott Taylor says. “Our office is not set up to have people come in to work and drink, but once four o’clock rolls around, we might break early, have some pizza down the street or grab a beer, then get back to work.”

The company moved its downtown office to a new location in May, and work should be completed by the end of the year. Already, the office has a basketball goal, kitchen and a slide from the second floor to the ground floor. Once the offices are finished, Taylor says there will be a full-service bar and maybe even space for video game play.

“Why not take a mental break and do something fun?” Taylor says. “We want employees to be able to get away from the desk and clear their head. Take 10 minutes then get back to work.”

• An oversized reprint of a newspaper article on the founding of the company and the story of Brandon Landry and Jack Warner adorns a wall near the entrance.
• A slide sits right in the middle of the office, leading from the second to the first floor. Do employees use it on a regular basis? Yes, indeed.

Other features:
• The basketball goal, which was in the lobby at press time and will be moved to the main office space, gets plenty of use. Co-workers tend to take a break to shoot hoops in the middle of the day. Taylor says he’s not opposed to bringing in video games, too. “We want a Wii,” he says. “That’s great exercise.”
• The “war room” features walls that are usually full of Post-It notes and scribbled ideas. Taylor says it’s where the brains go to work and ideas are hashed out.
• The Monday morning meeting room includes signs inspiring workers to head “True North,” which is a way of saying, “Be the best you can be.”
• The full-service bar will feature a “kegerator.” For now, the space has coffee, bottled water and Red Bulls, as well as room to make a quick lunch.

walkonsenterprises.com