NEW YORK B.R. Guest LLC, one of New York City’s largest and most high-profile multiconcept restaurant groups, is closing two of its operations, converting another two and cutting staff.
Blue Water Grill in Chicago and the Upper West Side location of Ruby Foo’s in New York will close when their leases expire this spring, and Fiamma, a fine-dining Italian restaurant that received three out of four stars from The New York Times, is being converted to an event space, B.R. Guest said. Celebrity chef Fabio Trabocchi, the chef at Fiamma, has left the company.
In addition, Level V, a lounge beneath the Italian restaurant Vento in New York’s Meatpacking District, will be rebranded and reopened in the spring.
“In these tough economic times, businesses are being forced to make some difficult decisions and the restaurant industry is not immune to these problems,” said Stephen Hanson, president and founder of B.R. Guest. “In order to keep our business strong and competitive, we have no choice but to scale back and streamline our company. The restructuring plan will put us in a better position to take advantage of opportunities when the economic climate improves.”
The news comes a day after Hanson spoke during an investment conference about weak customer traffic near the end of 2008 and his concerns for the new year.
“I think the consumer will just shut down, and even when they do go out, they will be thinking differently about how they spend their money ... 2009 will be a very, very tough year,” he said at the conference.
Hanson sold his restaurant group in early 2007 to Starwood Capital Group. At the time, the B.R. Guest founder, who maintained a 50-percent stake in the company, said he expected to grow the company from the 16 units it had at the time to between 60 and 80 in two years. With the two closures, the company now operates 17 restaurants in New York, Chicago and Las Vegas.
The company said employees working in the closed restaurants would receive severance packages.
B. R. Guest and former Fiamma chef Trabocchi both said his departure was an amicable one.