Louis Bivona, the owner of Tavern on the Green’s charity-based licensing firm, said Friday he is exploring the possibility of chaining the iconic Central Park, New York City-based restaurant.
Bivona — who indicated that he also has other, more extensive plans for the brand — bid $1.3 million for certain intellectual-property rights to the shuttered Tavern, which has been in Chapter 7 bankruptcy since 2010.
The rights are being sold to help pay off the restaurant’s creditors.
The trustee of the bankruptcy estates of Tavern on the Green Limited Partnerships and LeRoy Adventures Inc. — which had run the high-grossing restaurant since 1976 — entered into an agreement to sell the rights to Bivona.
However, a bankruptcy court-approved bidding process first must be conducted before the sale is finalized. The auction is expected to be completed in late September.
The trademark rights being auctioned would enable the new owner to have royalty-free use of the Tavern on the Green name and logo for new restaurants outside of New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and parts of Pennsylvania, according to Streambank LLC, a Needham, Mass.-based firm retained by the trustee to conduct the sale.
The City of New York, which established the original Central Park restaurant in 1934, was awarded the rights to operate or license Tavern on the Green in the aforementioned areas by a U.S. District Judge last year.
Additional rights include ownership of the Tavern trademark for salad dressings and oils, as well as the rights to register the trademark for other products, including packaged food items, home décor and cookware.
“This is a tremendous opportunity to own an iconic brand that is world renowned — and arguably the most famous full-service restaurant brand in the world,” Gabe Fried, a Streambank executive, said in a statement.
At the peak of its popularity, Tavern on the Green was said to generate in excess of $35 million in sales annually.
Bivona, who declined to provide details of his plans for the brand, admitted that he would likely license future restaurants to others rather than operate them himself if he wins the bid.
“If we win, we have some unique ideas,” he told Nation’s Restaurant News. “We’ll do it right.”
Bivona said his entire purpose for acquiring the trademark rights to Tavern on the Green is to help raise money for the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, of which he is chairman of the New York branch.
“I came to this with a whole different perspective,” he said. “I was searching for a way to fund the charity, and saw what Paul Newman was doing with his company.”
Bivona has been distributing Tavern-branded salad dressings, oils and marinades under the name Tavern Direct, since 2007.
Most of the premium products range in price from $8.50 to $11, with 50 cents from each item sold donated to the center. “I really think we have found a great way to fund the center,” Bivona said. “We will definitely be able to do this with any number of products.”
The LeRoy family filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy following the termination of its contract with the City of New York to run Tavern on the Green, and closed the restaurant on Dec. 31, 2009. A U.S. bankruptcy judge converted the case to a Chapter 7 liquidation after creditors requested the change after an auction of the Tavern’s content failed to raise enough money to pay off debt.
Contact Paul Frumkin at [email protected].