Roni’s Mac Bar, a restaurant best known for its customizable mac and cheese bowls and grilled cheese sandwiches, is opening in Ames.
The restaurant was founded by a husband and wife team in Waco, Texas, and its Ames location will be at 2702 Lincoln Way in the storefront that used to house Big Acai Bowl.
“My wife and I had a lot of experience with restaurants beforehand, and then we opened up our own dessert shop,” CEO Frank Senese said. “So we started that… and there was an open [unit] beside us. And [we were] like, ‘let’s throw something in there.’”
After considering many ideas for a business, including a donut bar, a cereal bar and a sushi joint, the pair decided on mac and cheese, and Roni’s Mac Bar was born.
The restaurant’s menu features a customizable menu, with customers able to choose from a list of different toppings and fillings.
“You can literally come in here and just build whatever you want,” Mary Senese, COO and co-founder of Roni’s Mac Bar, said. “So you can put pineapple on it, you can put corn on it, you can make it plain… There’s no combination that we’ve gotten that we’re like, ‘What the heck?’ So I think [that’s] the fun [of it].”
Franchise owner Nick Wahlert agrees that the restaurant’s customizability makes it special.
“I think it’s what brings people back,” Wahlert said. “The options are endless.”
Roni’s Mac Bar’s grand opening will be held at 10:30 a.m. Saturday. Those attending the event can expect live music, multiple other vendors, giveaways and prizes. For the first 100 guests, one of these prizes is the chance to win free mac and cheese for a year.
“As a previous student, I know I would have, you know, killed for an opportunity to have free food for a year,” Frank Senese said. “If you’re wanting to, you know, set yourself up for success with Roni’s in terms of rewards and prizes, Saturday… is the time to be here.”
Even though the grand opening is not scheduled until the weekend, Roni’s Mac Bar is open for business for the rest of the week. Some students have even been lucky enough to score free food.
“Just the other day… we had cars pulling up to the red light [on Lincoln Way], and we were handing bowls out to them, just because we had extra bowls that we were training this week,” Frank Senese said. “If you come by, you might [get free samples]. I wouldn’t bank on it, but you know.”
This will be the restaurant’s ninth location in the United States and its second in the Midwest.
“Our target demographic as a whole is college towns,” Wahlert said. “Ames just kind of made sense.”
As popular as their mac and cheese is, Roni’s Mac Bar is perhaps known best for their social media presence. At the time of publication, the company has over two million followers on their social media accounts, with over 800,000 followers on TikTok alone.
Wahlert, like the majority of the Roni’s Mac Bar franchise owners, found out about the company through social media.
“I was doom-scrolling one night, like, end of 2023, and it came up,” Wahlert said. “And I was like, ‘Hey, that looks pretty good.’ Next thing you know, it came up a week later… Eventually, I was like, ‘Let’s check it out.’ [And] here I am.”
“We realized that… social media is a great lever to leave on, and then we can also put money into the traditional marketing stuff, which we do, but it’s amplified by the social media,” Frank Senese said. “So it makes our cost per clicks and all that so much cheaper… without having to put money into as much reach as many other brands might have to.”
However, the company’s story with social media hasn’t always been a positive one. According to Mary Senese, one of their TikToks went viral for “all the wrong reasons” a month after they opened their first location.
“[We got] lots of negative comments, lots of hate,” Mary Senese said. “Honestly, pretty valid… People were like, ‘Why aren’t you baking your mac and cheese?’ or ‘Why does your chicken not look seasoned enough?’”
Rather than being discouraged, the pair took the advice and improved their business.
“We would look through the comments and see which things are most prominent,” Mary Senese said. “Then, we went out and bought an oven, or we changed our chicken… So, that’s still a huge part of our story. I mean, thankfully, all that negative has turned into positive.”
Roni’s Mac Bar will be open from 10:30 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. Monday through Sunday following its grand opening.
For more updates and information, follow the company’s Ames location on Instagram.
