NEW YORK —Just weeks after closing the deal to sell the publicly held Smith & Wollensky steak-house chain, founder Alan Stillman and his son, Michael, are readying plans to expand their newly formed company, Fourth Wall Restaurants LLC.
Alan Stillman, who founded the high-end steakhouse brand as well as casual-dining icon T.G.I. Friday’s, hopes to open a new full-service restaurant every 18 months or so under the Fourth Wall umbrella. —Just weeks after closing the deal to sell the publicly held Smith & Wollensky steak-house chain, founder Alan Stillman and his son, Michael, are readying plans to expand their newly formed company, Fourth Wall Restaurants LLC.
And while the Stillmans are planning to concentrate their energies chiefly on the Manhattan dining scene, they have not ruled out the possibility of expanding into other areas. —Just weeks after closing the deal to sell the publicly held Smith & Wollensky steak-house chain, founder Alan Stillman and his son, Michael, are readying plans to expand their newly formed company, Fourth Wall Restaurants LLC.
“There are a lot of options, but we’ll probably focus on the city for the time being,” said Fourth Wall president Michael Stillman. —Just weeks after closing the deal to sell the publicly held Smith & Wollensky steak-house chain, founder Alan Stillman and his son, Michael, are readying plans to expand their newly formed company, Fourth Wall Restaurants LLC.
The Stillmans formed Fourth Wall soon after Smith & Wollensky was sold for $94.7 million, or $11 per share, to the two principals of the New York-based Patina Restaurant Group, Nick Valenti and Joachim Splichal, and private-equity firm Bunker Hill Capital LP. The new owners—who were successful in a months-long bidding war against Landry’s Restaurant Group and several other unidentified suitors—acquired eight Smith & Wollensky outlets around the country and the rights to expand the brand internationally. —Just weeks after closing the deal to sell the publicly held Smith & Wollensky steak-house chain, founder Alan Stillman and his son, Michael, are readying plans to expand their newly formed company, Fourth Wall Restaurants LLC.
Valenti has since said the new owners already have begun to explore sites to expand the brand in the United States and possibly overseas. —Just weeks after closing the deal to sell the publicly held Smith & Wollensky steak-house chain, founder Alan Stillman and his son, Michael, are readying plans to expand their newly formed company, Fourth Wall Restaurants LLC.
The Stillmans reacquired SWRG’s New York business interests for about $6.85 million as part of the agreement. The New York business includes ownership of two restaurants, Quality Meats and Park Avenue Summer, as well as the management contracts for the flagship Smith & Wollensky location, Maloney & Porcelli and The Post House. —Just weeks after closing the deal to sell the publicly held Smith & Wollensky steak-house chain, founder Alan Stillman and his son, Michael, are readying plans to expand their newly formed company, Fourth Wall Restaurants LLC.
The New York Smith & Wollensky location, which ranks as one of the highest-grossing restaurants in the city, remains under the independent ownership of a 30-year-old entity called St. James Associates, of which Stillman holds a 20-percent stake. Maloney & Porcelli is owned by a separate partnership, of which he owns half. —Just weeks after closing the deal to sell the publicly held Smith & Wollensky steak-house chain, founder Alan Stillman and his son, Michael, are readying plans to expand their newly formed company, Fourth Wall Restaurants LLC.
The five restaurants generate annual top-line sales of approximately $60 million. —Just weeks after closing the deal to sell the publicly held Smith & Wollensky steak-house chain, founder Alan Stillman and his son, Michael, are readying plans to expand their newly formed company, Fourth Wall Restaurants LLC.
The Stillmans also acquired the shuttered Dallas and New Orleans’ Smith & Wollensky properties in the deal. The Dallas restaurant has since been sold for $3.9 million and the 18,000-square-foot New Orleans location currently is on the market. In addition, they agreed to pay for all of the deal’s transaction costs. —Just weeks after closing the deal to sell the publicly held Smith & Wollensky steak-house chain, founder Alan Stillman and his son, Michael, are readying plans to expand their newly formed company, Fourth Wall Restaurants LLC.
While the Stillmans said they had not necessarily been looking to reacquire SWRG’s New York business holdings, they were happy with the deal’s resolution. —Just weeks after closing the deal to sell the publicly held Smith & Wollensky steak-house chain, founder Alan Stillman and his son, Michael, are readying plans to expand their newly formed company, Fourth Wall Restaurants LLC.
“We could have started from scratch, but we have such a great base of people here in the company,” Michael Stillman said. —Just weeks after closing the deal to sell the publicly held Smith & Wollensky steak-house chain, founder Alan Stillman and his son, Michael, are readying plans to expand their newly formed company, Fourth Wall Restaurants LLC.
As the new company moves forward, initial plans call for the opening of a sixth restaurant sometime in 2008. —Just weeks after closing the deal to sell the publicly held Smith & Wollensky steak-house chain, founder Alan Stillman and his son, Michael, are readying plans to expand their newly formed company, Fourth Wall Restaurants LLC.
“We’re looking in a variety of [New York] neighborhoods now,” said Michael Stillman, who joined his father at SWRG about five years ago after graduating from Brown University and logging some restaurant business experience with Danny Meyer’s Union Square Hospitality Group. “Anybody who has a restaurant between 5,000 and 12,000 square feet, we’d love to talk with him.” —Just weeks after closing the deal to sell the publicly held Smith & Wollensky steak-house chain, founder Alan Stillman and his son, Michael, are readying plans to expand their newly formed company, Fourth Wall Restaurants LLC.
He said the concept would depend upon the location and space. —Just weeks after closing the deal to sell the publicly held Smith & Wollensky steak-house chain, founder Alan Stillman and his son, Michael, are readying plans to expand their newly formed company, Fourth Wall Restaurants LLC.
“We have a bunch of ideas,” he said. “We’re really pretty flexible. We could go for something high-end, like $110 per person, or more into the $50 range.” —Just weeks after closing the deal to sell the publicly held Smith & Wollensky steak-house chain, founder Alan Stillman and his son, Michael, are readying plans to expand their newly formed company, Fourth Wall Restaurants LLC.
While Fourth Wall is not planning to develop a concept at the low end of the foodservice spectrum, the Stillmans said they would not rule out opening a more casual, full-service restaurant like Houston’s, with a per-person check average around $35. —Just weeks after closing the deal to sell the publicly held Smith & Wollensky steak-house chain, founder Alan Stillman and his son, Michael, are readying plans to expand their newly formed company, Fourth Wall Restaurants LLC.
However, they are not particularly anxious to launch another chain. —Just weeks after closing the deal to sell the publicly held Smith & Wollensky steak-house chain, founder Alan Stillman and his son, Michael, are readying plans to expand their newly formed company, Fourth Wall Restaurants LLC.
“We would prefer to stick with ‘one-offs,’” Michael Stillman said. —Just weeks after closing the deal to sell the publicly held Smith & Wollensky steak-house chain, founder Alan Stillman and his son, Michael, are readying plans to expand their newly formed company, Fourth Wall Restaurants LLC.
Nor is the public marketplace an attractive option for future growth. Alan Stillman, who took Smith & Wollensky public in 2001, said he was glad to be out of the market. —Just weeks after closing the deal to sell the publicly held Smith & Wollensky steak-house chain, founder Alan Stillman and his son, Michael, are readying plans to expand their newly formed company, Fourth Wall Restaurants LLC.
“I don’t think the public market is a good place currently for small restaurant companies,” he said. “I’d rule out going public again.” —Just weeks after closing the deal to sell the publicly held Smith & Wollensky steak-house chain, founder Alan Stillman and his son, Michael, are readying plans to expand their newly formed company, Fourth Wall Restaurants LLC.
Future development capital would come from outside funding, the pair said. —Just weeks after closing the deal to sell the publicly held Smith & Wollensky steak-house chain, founder Alan Stillman and his son, Michael, are readying plans to expand their newly formed company, Fourth Wall Restaurants LLC.
In the meantime, they are focusing on their newest restaurants, Quality Meats and Park Avenue. Quality Meats replaced the seafood-centric Manhattan Ocean Club last summer, and, according to the 2007 Zagat Survey of New York City Restaurants, the “excellent New American steakhouse” arrived like “a breath of fresh air on the stuffy Midtown scene.” —Just weeks after closing the deal to sell the publicly held Smith & Wollensky steak-house chain, founder Alan Stillman and his son, Michael, are readying plans to expand their newly formed company, Fourth Wall Restaurants LLC.
Many observers of the New York restaurant scene note that a high level of creativity long has been the hallmark of Alan Stillman’s restaurants. John Mariani, food and travel correspondent for Esquire magazine, calls him “extremely talented and slightly underrated.” —Just weeks after closing the deal to sell the publicly held Smith & Wollensky steak-house chain, founder Alan Stillman and his son, Michael, are readying plans to expand their newly formed company, Fourth Wall Restaurants LLC.
“He’s never gotten the kind of attention that Danny Meyer or Steve Hanson has gotten,” Mariani said, “but he has a real presence.” —Just weeks after closing the deal to sell the publicly held Smith & Wollensky steak-house chain, founder Alan Stillman and his son, Michael, are readying plans to expand their newly formed company, Fourth Wall Restaurants LLC.
The Stillmans’ latest restaurant, Park Avenue Summer, promises to be no exception. It opened in June on the site of the former Park Avenue Café, which Alan Stillman had debuted in 1992 with chef and then-partner David Burke. The admittedly “complicated” Park Avenue Summer is themed to the seasons, but goes far beyond what any seasonal restaurants yet have attempted. Not only will executive chef Craig Koketsu change the New American menu quarterly, the restaurant name will switch officially each season to reflect the changes—Park Avenue Summer, in fact, changes officially to Park Avenue Autumn later this month. —Just weeks after closing the deal to sell the publicly held Smith & Wollensky steak-house chain, founder Alan Stillman and his son, Michael, are readying plans to expand their newly formed company, Fourth Wall Restaurants LLC.
Virtually everything else about the restaurant will transform as well, Michael Stillman said, including about one-third of the wine list, uniforms, a seasonal cocktail bar, napkins and even decor. —Just weeks after closing the deal to sell the publicly held Smith & Wollensky steak-house chain, founder Alan Stillman and his son, Michael, are readying plans to expand their newly formed company, Fourth Wall Restaurants LLC.
The fabric in the seat cushions has been designed to change, the lighting fixtures will change, and custom steel wall frames surrounding the dining areas have been constructed to accept different panels reflecting the seasons. —Just weeks after closing the deal to sell the publicly held Smith & Wollensky steak-house chain, founder Alan Stillman and his son, Michael, are readying plans to expand their newly formed company, Fourth Wall Restaurants LLC.
“Even the phone number will change,” Michael Stillman said, although he adds that if a customer calls an old number, it will automatically connect to the new number. —Just weeks after closing the deal to sell the publicly held Smith & Wollensky steak-house chain, founder Alan Stillman and his son, Michael, are readying plans to expand their newly formed company, Fourth Wall Restaurants LLC.
“It’s beyond what [Restaurant Associates] tried at The Four Seasons [in New York] 50 years ago,” Alan Stillman said. “But we’ve also got techniques and certain elements that they just didn’t have then.” —Just weeks after closing the deal to sell the publicly held Smith & Wollensky steak-house chain, founder Alan Stillman and his son, Michael, are readying plans to expand their newly formed company, Fourth Wall Restaurants LLC.
The restaurant will close for two days between each season to effect the necessary changes. —Just weeks after closing the deal to sell the publicly held Smith & Wollensky steak-house chain, founder Alan Stillman and his son, Michael, are readying plans to expand their newly formed company, Fourth Wall Restaurants LLC.
