For bid: One failed restaurant, including a $25,000 a month lease, a liquor license, and 4-year-old, well-worn equipment.
Ridgewood's former Blend goes on the bankruptcy auction block next Thursday, and if today's walkthrough was any indication, nobody really knows how it's going to end up.
Will Nick Russo, center, win a bid for the liquor license that he'll pass along to Dim Sum Dynasty, a Chinese restaurant housed in a building he owns?
Will Lisa Mayisoglu, right, place her own bid in an effort to serve alcohol in her 2-year-old Lisa's Turkish Kitchen on Chestnut Street?
Will a well-off restaurateur swoop in with a gigantic bid for the whole place? Will a first-time restaurateur secure the lease and equipment and let the liquor license go to someone else?
We'll find out in a week as auctioneer Harry Byrnes, left, will wrangle prospective bidders into bidding first on the entire package and then on the three separate components -- the equipment, the lease and the liquor license. Whichever scenario yields more money will detemine the winner or winners.
There will be no minimum bids, but prospective bidders must bring a certified check for $100,000. A bankruptcy judge must approve the final bids. Proceeds will go toward Blend's creditors, who are owed more than $4 million.
More than a dozen restaurateurs visited the site this afternoon to scope out the site and ask questions. None publicly committed to bidding, but you can see some potential scenarios emerge based on who was there:
- Russo, who said DIm Sum Dynasty on Franklin Avenue might be interested in the liquor license only.
- Mayisoglu, who would love to add drinks to her 80-seat restaurant -- one of the few in town large enough to add a bar and liquor storage.
- Jim Miceli and Ron Norrell, who own the Gazelle Cafe & Grill on Godwin Avenue and have been seeking a larger space for some time. Gazelle has been on the market for at least a year. (I didn't have the opportunity to speak with them.)
- David Jacey, who I believe owns Hoboken's Black Bear Bar & Grill and Bahama Mama's. (He and I spoke, but he wouldn't even tell me his name, let alone his intentions. Another restaurateur ID'ed him for me.)
- William Cron, who owns the restaurant 200 Main Street in New Milford, which has been for sale for several months.
- John Katz, who has owned a bunch of restaurants and clubs in Bergen County but has been out of the restaurant business for two years. He's considering getting back in the game.
- Sara Riva, who owns Trattoria Fratteli on East Ridgewood Avenue. Like Lisa's Turkish Kitchen, it's one of the few Ridgewood restaurants with enough space.
- A guy in a Joseph M. Sanzari jacket who wished to not speak on the record and wouldn't say whether he represented Sanzari, who owns Sanzari's New Bridge Inn in New Milford and the Stony Hill Inn in Hackensack. Sanzari also owned Sanzari's Oyster Bar in Tenafly for two years, and still owns the liquor license for that spot.
- An aspiring restaurateur who brought one of the area's sharpest general managers with him but would only speak off the record.
Who wasn't there? Best I can tell, anyone from A Mano or Radicchio, perhaps the only two other restaurants with space for a liquor license. But they'll get another chance next Thursday, with a 9 a.m. walkthough, two hours before bidding begins.
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