Friday, May 22/09
Receiver takes control of Thom's
Thom Coffman once owned two restaurants, a popular bar and had dreams of building and owning a hotel and condominium complex. Two years later, his empire is down to his flagship Clarmont restaurant in Columbus.
The restaurateur's Grandview Heights-area dining spot, Thom's on Grandview, has gone into receivership and closed, while other development plans remain stalled by the economy. A Franklin County Common Pleas Court judge appointed Gryphon Asset Management LLC as the restaurant's receiver.
Gryphon President Richard Kruse said he has shown the property to six parties since being appointed May 14 and hopes to sell it as a turnkey operation - with the lease, furniture, fixtures, liquor license and other assets in one package.
"This was a surprising thing," Coffman said. "Their goal is our goal - to sell the property for as much as we can."
Coffman has been trying to sell Thom's since last summer. The 9,000-square-foot fine dining spot opened in 2005 in space that previously housed Braddock's Grandview. It includes a 70-seat restaurant with patio and an upstairs banquet room.
Coffman earlier posted a sign in the window telling patrons Thom's had closed, but that its catering and event business would continue while he worked on plans for a new restaurant at the site. Those plans have been shelved and the business is closed.
"It's tough to fail," Coffman said. "We put a lot of time and heart and energy into making it work, but as the economy worsened, business worsened and we couldn't recover."
Plans on hold
Times changed quickly for Coffman, who with business partner Peter Luft in 2007 revealed plans for a 10-story, 54-condo complex on South High Street with a reborn 7,000-square-foot Clarmont restaurant. About 13,000 square feet of commercial space and a rooftop bar were included in the plans. They later altered those plans into a boutique hotel on four floors and condos on the other two.
Not only have those plans been idled and Thoms on Grandview closed since then, but Coffman shuttered the Round Bar at the Best Western hotel next to the Clarmont. He also put the property under the restaurant up for sale, with plans for a sale-leaseback arrangement with the new owner.
Coffman bought the Round Bar in 1999 and maintains rights to the name. He closed it when its lease expired and the Best Western owners decided they no longer wanted a bar.
Coffman said receivership at Thom's doesn't affect the Clarmont, which he has owned since 1996. The 62-year-old Clarmont is the city's oldest white-tablecloth restaurant.
Coffman got into the restaurant industry when he moved to Columbus in 1983 after almost 10 years as a train engineer. He still hopes to develop the hotel and condo project, but concedes the economy has made that unlikely anytime soon.
Original Post: http://columbus.bizjournals.com/columbus/stories/2009/05/25/story10.html
|
|
