The operator of Lark Creek restaurants in California has joined forces with multiconcept operator Moana Restaurant Group in a synergistic move to cut costs.
San Francisco-based Lark Creek Café Inc. is the arm of Lark Creek Restaurant Group, which includes 10 restaurants that mostly share the Lark Creek name. The group has sold a minority stake in those restaurants to San Rafael, Calif.-based Moana Restaurant Group, which owns or operates 22 upscale-casual restaurants in California, including the nine-unit Piatti Ristorante & Bar chain.
Lark Creek Café restaurants in California include Lark Creek Blue in San Jose, Lark Creek Grill and Lark Creek Steak in San Francisco, Lark Creek Newport Beach, and Lark Creek Walnut Creek. The group also includes the restaurants Parcel 104 and Cupola, as well as two locations of Yankee Pier.
Lark Creek also owns the seafood restaurant formerly known as Fish Story, in downtown Napa, Calif., which has been closed to be remodeled with a wine country theme. That restaurant is expected to reopen in the spring.
As part of the deal, Lark Creek also signed a management contract with Moana to operate all of the restaurants, a move that was designed to reduce overhead and add new life to the brands.
Michael Dellar, cofounder and CEO of Lark Creek Café Inc., said the agreement has essentially eliminated overhead for the Lark Creek group. With Moana taking on the accounting, information technology, human resources and other back- and front-of-the-house operations, the groups can collectively benefit from combined buying power and other synergies.
The amount of Moana’s capital investment was not disclosed, but Dellar said it will allow the group to grow.
Moana’s restaurants are “vibrant and exciting, and they tend to skew a little younger than ours,” Dellar said. “They’ll bring a fresh eye to our business.”
Jon Swanson, Moana’s president, agreed that the deal brings “new creative thinking and new capital for growth” to the table.
“We definitely feel there’s a great opportunity with expanding the brand,” Swanson said.
He added that the companies will look at tweaking the Lark Creek brands.
Dellar declined to comment on sales at the Lark Creek restaurants except to say, “Business is solid.”
Dellar is also a principal in One Market, a fine-dining, farm-to-table concept in San Francisco that was founded in 1993 with chef Bradley Ogden. That restaurant is operated independently and is not part of the deal with Moana, he said.
Prior to the agreement with Moana, which went into effect Jan. 1, Lark Creek Café in November sold two restaurants in Larkspur, Calif., including the Tavern at Lark Creek and a nearby location of Yankee Pier.
Dellar said his relationship with Moana goes back to 1991, when he was hired to consult on Moana’s first concept, The Paragon in San Francisco. The group now operates three Paragon locations.
The two companies also discussed a merger in 2008, but when the recession hit the timing didn’t seem right.
In addition to the Piatti and Paragon brands, Moana operates a number of one-off concepts, including Corners Tavern in Walnut Creek, El Dorado Kitchen in Sonoma and The Farmers Union in San Jose.
Other concepts include Stone Brewing World Bistro & Gardens in San Diego, the Napa Valley restaurants Redd and Redd Wood, and Molina in Mill Valley.
Outside California, the group also includes Irving Street Kitchen in Portland, Ore.; Plantation Gardens in Hawaii; and Hacienda Cocina y Cantina in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.
Contact Lisa Jennings at [email protected].
Follow her on Twitter: @livetodineout
