Bryan Lockwood tries to make himself the least important person in the growing multiconcept operation that is Tavistock Restaurants.
“Our view is that the restaurant business is an upside down pyramid, and I’m at the bottom, not the top,” he said.
But as president of an acquisition-hungry restaurant company that now boasts 13 brands and 68 locations — with a 22-unit deal still pending at press time that will bring another five concepts under the Tavistock flag — it’s hard not to notice Lockwood’s growing stature in the industry.
Friends and colleagues describe Lockwood as a restaurant guy to the core, an industry veteran, like so many, who started working in the hospitality industry while still in school and never turned back. As a young man he found he had a knack for running restaurants.
During a career that has spanned more than three decades, he has held such titles as franchisor, franchisee, investor and consultant to various companies and brands, including Bonanza Steakhouse, Po Folks, Wendy’s and KFC. He’s also had roles in nightclubs and countless independents.
Now he is in the enviable position of presiding over a deep-pocketed, debt-free restaurant group that is looking for opportunities to pull in both wounded and healthy brands with potential for growth.
Tavistock Restaurants most recently added to its portfolio E-Brands Restaurants of Orlando, Fla. E-Brands was acquired in March for $11.3 million at auction and includes four Timpano Italian Chophouse locations and one Samba Room, as well as the Aquaknox, Taqueria Canonita and Canonita Express units in Las Vegas.
Still pending at press time was the purchase of Boston-based Back Bay Restaurant Group, a deal agreed to in January for an undisclosed sum. The deal includes 22 full-service restaurants under the Abe & Louie’s, Joe’s American Bar & Grill, Atlantic Fish, Charley’s and Coach Grill brands. Two units of Back Bay’s 11-unit Papa Razzi chain are also part of the deal.
Tavistock in 2007 bought the fast-casual Freebirds World Burrito brand, which will soon start franchising, accelerating that chain’s already rapid growth. Currently there are 48 Freebirds, with another 30 expected to open before the end of the year.
Tavistock Restaurants also owns Sapporo, a Pacific Rim-themed casual-dining concept in Scottsdale, Ariz.; the ZED451 churrascaria concept in Chicago and Boca Raton, Fla.; three locations of Napa Valley Grille; three California Cafes; and the one-offs Cafe del Rey in Los Angeles; Blackhawk Grille in Danville, Calif.; and Alcatraz Brewing Co. – Restaurant and Brewery in Orange, Calif.
And Tavistock is by no means done with this buying spree.
Barry Goff, chief executive of Tavistock Restaurants, said the company is continuing to look for opportunities, whether by growing existing brands or finding new ones, preferably in the upscale-casual to fine-dining segments, or perhaps fast casual.
“We like good brands at good prices,” he said, but Tavistock isn’t shy about taking on distressed concepts.
Goff said that’s in part why he hired Lockwood, someone with the “hospitality gene” who had “ground-up restaurant operations experience” with different brands, but who also understands the finance side.
“Not a lot of people can do both,” he said.
Like mother, like son
Lockwood was raised in Peoria, Ill. His mother worked as the manager of a hamburger stand called Hunt’s that did more than $1 million a year, he recalled.
“That’s a lot of burgers and milkshakes,” he said.
Lockwood studied political science, but instead ended up following in his mother’s footsteps “all the way to the dishpan,” he said.
While in school, he began working for a Bonanza Steakhouse master franchisee and became a manager. After he improved operations there, Lockwood said he “became known as a workout guy.”
Soon he found himself sitting with another franchise owner who pushed a blank sheet of paper across a desk at him, asking what it would take for Lockwood to run his restaurant.
Lockwood said he somehow found the courage to ask twice the salary he had been making at the time. He was offered the job. A short time later, that business was “making more money than I thought possible,” he said.
So Lockwood did what he has done many times since: He bought the restaurant.
And he later sold it, making close to $1 million at age 26. Then he bought and sold a couple more.
Lockwood felt he had found his niche.
For the next two decades, Lockwood said he “bobbed and weaved” through the restaurant world, investing in franchise brands such as KFC, Wendy’s and Po Folks.
Not all deals worked out, however. He recalled when he and longtime friend Eric Holm, now a Golden Corral franchisee, tried to buy Skeeter’s Big Biscuits, a renowned breakfast-and-country-music hangout near the University of Florida in Gainesville, but Asher “Skeeter” Sullivan wouldn’t sell.
In the late 1980s he was part of a group of investors that bought a controlling interest in then-public Fuddruckers. He helped put together a recapitalization plan, but another investor group ended up buying Fuddruckers, yielding a profitable result despite losing the brand.
Lockwood made another run at the chain last year through Tavistock with a $40 million bid to buy the Fuddruckers and Koo Koo Roo brands out of bankruptcy, but that deal fell through. Houston-based Luby’s Inc. purchased the brands for $61 million.
Concept collector
By the 1990s Lockwood was doing strategic consulting for a lot of bankers, he said. One of them was Goff, then president of restaurant investment firm CNL Restaurant Properties Inc. Goff was looking into the acquisition of Constellation Concepts, a multiconcept operator based in Emeryville, Calif., that had fallen into Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
It was to become the first acquisition of what became known as Tavistock Restaurants, part of the Tavistock Group, a multifaceted global investment company founded by U.K.-born billionaire Joe Lewis.
Goff said Lewis made his “first fortune” in the foodservice industry in England and has long dipped in and out of hospitality around the world, although the group didn’t have any U.S. restaurant investments at the time.
Tavistock Restaurants was created by Goff in 2003 to buy Constellation Concepts, which at the time had 17 restaurants, including multiple locations of the Napa Valley Grille and California Cafe concepts, Horizons, Cafe del Rey, Blackhawk and Alcatraz.
The group was eventually pared down. Three locations of Napa Valley Grille and another three California Cafes were closed as leases came up, said Lockwood. Additionally, the Horizons brand was sold, a move that recouped about 65 percent of what was paid for Constellation as a whole, he added.
Goff said he initially named Lockwood chief operating officer, but he was later promoted to president as Tavistock Restaurants began to grow.
In 2006 Tavistock acquired three Sal & Carvão Churrascaria restaurants in Chicago.
Describing the brand as having average unit sales of more than $5 million at the time, the company said the plan initially was to grow the Sal & Carvão concept, but instead they closed two and reworked the remaining location as ZED451.
Lockwood headed the development of the new concept, which he described as “a rebirthing” of the Brazilian churrascaria merged with an American steakhouse in a stylized setting. ZED451 offers a $44 set-price dinner and has a strong bar business.
ZED451 became Lewis’ “baby,” Lockwood said, noting Lewis saw the concept as a world-class brand that could go to Paris or Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
The group opened a second location in Boca Raton, Fla., in mid-November 2008 — unfortunately right around the time the economy stalled and the president began chastising businesses for extravagant travel, said Lockwood.
“You couldn’t have picked a worse time,” he said. “It was like somebody turned the faucet off.”
The recession took its toll on all the brands, said Lockwood.
“We were flat going into November 2008, but after that, not so flat.”
The next few years were spent re-engineering menus and installing aggressive wine strategies with the goal of making Tavistock concepts more value oriented.
“We figured if we could drive traffic, we could figure out how to make money again,” he said.
Their efforts paid off. Even in a difficult 2010, Lockwood said, the company was able to lift guest counts more than 16 percent for the upscale brands, and sales were up 8 percent over 2009. So far 2011 is tracking about the same.
“There’s pent-up demand,” he noted. “Consumers are bored to death.”
Still, because of rising gas prices, Tavistock has no plans to raise prices at any concept this year, he added.
Pulling it all together
Growing ZED451 is still in the plans. That’s where Lockwood met Charles Sarkis, the founder of Back Bay Restaurant Group, he said.
Sarkis was in Chicago a few years ago for the National Restaurant Association’s annual conference, and he came to ZED451. Lockwood was working the door and gave Sarkis a tour.
“He loved that I was at the door because that was the old school he came from,” said Lockwood. Later, when Sarkis began thinking about selling his company, Tavistock was ready to step in.
In fact, one of Tavistock’s strengths is its ability to pay cash and move quickly, noted Lockwood.
Holm, owner of Golden Corral franchise group Metro Corral Partners in Orlando and Lockwood’s longtime friend, said he is impressed by what Lockwood has helped build, describing him as “a trustworthy, honorable type guy.”
“He’s gotten a lot going in a short amount of time,” said Holm, noting that Lockwood is in the enviable position of having solid financial backing at a time when growth capital is hard to come by.
“Tavistock does things with cash. That’s a cool model to work with,” he said, laughing. “You have to be from the right stock to have that kind of investment group behind you.”
Still, having cash on hand doesn’t mean tough decisions can be avoided, said Lockwood.
In the E-Brands deal, for example, Tavistock bought the Samba Room in Orlando for the location only. It will likely be reconcepted, he said.
And the two Papa Razzi locations included in the 22-restaurant Back Bay acquisition were bought because of liquor-license ties with the other brands. Tavistock is not currently interested in the 11-unit Papa Razzi brand, Lockwood said.
“It didn’t fulfill our strategy.”
There’s work to do, he said, including building a capital plan for both the Back Bay and E-Brands concepts.
The company will soon begin franchising the Freebirds brand, after positioning that fast-casual concept as the “Apple” compared with Chipotle Mexican Grill as “Dell.”
And there’s golf to be played, fine wine to be enjoyed and the 10 grandchildren to be tended to, as well as four children and his wife, said Lockwood.
“I’m kind of proud about how all this stuff came together,” said Lockwood. “I feel like I’ve been preparing for this my whole life.”
Contact Lisa Jennings at lisa.jennings@penton.com .
