The Grape Files For Chapter 11
Decatur Metro | November 6, 2008
Andy Peters points us over to his Deal Watch blog (which incidentally was the first to unveil Crescent Moon’s troubles) where he reports that The Grape wine bar has filed for bankruptcy.
As Andy notes “The Grape has four locations in Atlanta—Atlantic Station, Inman Park, Phipps Plaza and Vinings. It also owns or franchises stores and wine bars in Florida, North Carolina and Tennessee.”
It almost had a Decatur location once upon a time too. It owned the Dancing Goats space for a time after Sole closed. It even applied for a liquor license, but things never came to fruition.
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That’s too bad. I didn’t find The Grape particulary pretentious, although I agree the prices were a tad high (but cheaper than Tastings IMO). We enjoyed going to the Inman Park location on weekend nights when they featured live music or enjoying a glass of wine before a movie at Atlantic Station. Their servers introduced me to several wines that now enjoy heavy rotation in my house.
Wow…
I’m not a big fan of the Grape either…
But to be so happy when folks lose their jobs and more empty store fronts pop up in such an amazingly difficult economic time…
The must have treated you very very badly for you to wish them (and their employees) that much ill will…
Obviously that last sentence read more critical than I intended, so I’ve deleted it. Not worth it.
But Howard I never said I was happy that they closed and I certainly didn’t say I was happy that their employees lost their jobs, I said I was happy they never opened in Decatur. Big difference.
As an avid fan of the Grape and its unique selection of wines, I agree with Harupa. As a VC myself, I can tell you this does not mean the end of the Grape (I believe they are quite well capitalized). In the current economic downturn many businesses are faced with timing issues on cash flow due to money owed them, lower sales, etc. What many companies do in this situation is file Chapter 11 to “reorganize the business” and receive DIP financing……chapter 11 is not a bad thing for some business models at this time. I bet you this company is recapitalized and comes out leaner and meaner with great financing. The Atlanta sites alone are worth a fortune and with Usher involved you know the funds are there if the deal is right for him.
Please note, it was The Grape Enterprise Group that filed Chapter 11. This is the overall franchiser and owner of the Grape location Phipps Plaza.
The Grape locations in Inman Park, Atlantic Station, and Vinings are franchises and are not party to the Chapter 11 filing.
Thanks for the clarification SalMonela. What does it mean for the franchises if the overall franchiser goes under?
Others may correct me, but I think the worst case scenario would be that the surviving franchises might have to change names (if the company name was considered an ‘asset’ that could be sold in a liquidation scenario), and any bulk purchase contracts that were negotiated through the franchisor would be void. This might be an issue with The Grape locations because (and I don’t know this) their wholesale wine prices may have been negotiated based on their collective volume. Otherwise, it’s just the loss of corporate level and pooled advertising budget (if any).
From a customer perspective, it could mean a less consistent product between different locations. This would depend on how tightly the franchsor controls the image today, but from my limited experiences at The Grape, you can expect a pretty similar experience regardless of which one you visit. Without franchisor oversight, one of them could start pouring 2 Buck Chuck, or co-locate with a ChuckE Cheese if they wanted to.
Good to hear that you didn’t mean that the way it read.
Hello neighbors,
This is Kelly, one of the owners of Tastings and I would like respond to the prior poster’s comment about Tastings and take this opportunity to communicate some information about Tastings on behalf of Deb and myself.
We offer a wide variety of choices for all palates and pocketbooks. We have 7 wines for under $10 per glass, 12 wines for under $12 per glass, and 11 wines for under $15 per glass. Our house wines range from $7-$9 per glass. Every Friday, we feature 1/2 price draught beer, $5 Kettle One martinis and $5 Bombay Sapphire martinis.
Monday through Friday we offer lunch specials such as a sandwich or a pizza, a salad and a soft drink for $8. Our usual menu items range from $9 for small plates to $14 for filet mignon.
We acknowledge that we have some expensive wines on the tastings machines, however, the technology that we employ allows the wine to stay fresh for 27 days which provides us the ability to offer wines by the glass that are very rarely offered by the glass in other restaurants. As a result, our customers have the opportunity to taste or enjoy a glass of an expensive, highly rated wine as opposed to purchasing a bottle (as would be the case in a restaurant) and not knowing how they will like it. In addition, our pour prices and retail prices are extremely competitive with other retail establishments in the vicinity of our location.
Tastings enjoys being a part of the Decatur community and we have supported many community organizations and charities since opening 6 months ago.
I hope that you will come in and see these things for yourselves. We’d love to meet those of you who we have not yet met, and love to see those of you who we have already met!
Hey, we had a great time watching the election returns at Tastings!
The AJC follows up…