A high-profile restaurateur tangled in rent disputes, evictions and state tax troubles has launched a new series of edgy Instagram videos under the “Building back the brand” account.
It has one central message: The Place 2 Be is still open — ‘booked and busy,” as one of the videos trumpets.
But Gina Luari might not be able to say that about one of three remaining locations for much longer.
Luari’s Place 2 Be on a coveted corner in Blue Back Square in West Hartford across from the Delamar hotel already was set to close by the end of March under an agreement with Blue Back’s owners, following allegations of unpaid rent and other troubles. But the closing could come even sooner because of a late rent payment in December that triggered an automatic eviction provision in the agreement.
The eviction was halted in the courts— at least temporarily — and Luari is scrambling to try to extend her lease, a long shot at best.
The all-but-certain closing of West Hartford’s Place 2 B is the latest development in a stunning contraction of what appeared to be just two years ago one of Connecticut’s most promising restaurant businesses.
With the closing of West Hartford — the Place 2 Be chain that included sister restaurants — would be cut in size by more than half to just two locations: Constitution Plaza in downtown Hartford and New Haven.
Also lurking are court orders to pay nearly $2.5 million for two expansions with signed leases but which never opened. Those include $2 million tied to plans for a Place 2 Be in Dallas and $307,000 for a sister bakery, also at Blue Back in West Hartford. Both those judgments are the subject of further litigation in Connecticut, court documents show.
A third order requiring Luari to pay $975,000 to Massachusetts lender New Valley Bank & Trust in connection with the now-closed Place 2 Be at the Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield has been settled, according to Luari. The agreement with the bank, Luari said, prohibits her from discussing the terms of the settlement. New Valley did not return an email seeking comment, and documents haven’t been filed electronically with the courts.
In addition, Luari is on the hook for as much as $50,000 to the owners of Somerset Square in Glastonbury for a Mediterranean-themed restaurant that did not open in the former Max Amore space.
Two months ago, Luari said the three remaining restaurants are profitable ventures, but not necessarily at the levels that they once were. Her focus, Luari said, was to bring the restaurants back to their historic peaks of a couple of years ago, before her financial troubles deepened.
Those troubles, skeptics say, are rooted in an expansion that was too fast-paced — spanning just five years — diverting her attention from the individual restaurants.
Luari dismisses that speculation, saying her problems are not tied to her rapid expansion, but rather uncontrollable financial setbacks. Those setbacks were rooted in incidents of flooding, embezzlement and vandalism that she alleges figured into evictions in Springfield; RAW*, a seafood bar in downtown Hartford; and The Place 2 Be-themed bakery in Hartford’s South End. RAW* received a $150,000 Hart Lift storefront revitalization grant, a program using Hartford’s pandemic relief funds and administered by the Hartford Chamber of Commerce.
In all, Luari has been evicted from four locations, including the bakery at Blue Back.
Luari continues to maintain that she sees no need to file for bankruptcy protection to put her current financial troubles behind her.
Shifting landscape
The swift contraction in the number of Luari’s restaurants, part of The Statement Group, her Hartford-based corporation, is breathtaking.
She had once drawn national attention for turning the concept of brunch — once considered ho-hum — into a hip, all-day affair with cool decor tailor-made for Instagram. She became the darling of local restaurant circles.
Now, perhaps most troubling of all, Luari was arrested in September on felony larceny charges for passing a bad check for about $11,000 at an East Hartford restaurant supply warehouse. She has pleaded not guilty. Her next court date is Wednesday.
On Friday, a Superior Court judge in Hartford did not immediately rule on the filing trying to stave off immediate eviction at The Place 2 Be in Blue Back.
If the ruling were in favor of Blue Back’s owners, Greenwich-based Blue Back Capital Partners, it could clear the way for a quicker-than-expected closure.
Luari, who attended the court hearing, said afterward that she has tried to negotiate a lease extension, even though she acknowledges she signed the agreement that calls for her restaurant to move out by the end of March.
Luari said she’s offered months of prepaid rent “everything under the sun, and I don’t understand it,” Luari said. “I’ve been in that space for five years, the longest tenant in that space. Why would they want that space to be empty?”
Attorney Douglas M. Evans, an attorney representing Blue Back Capital Partners, declined to comment after the hearing. But Evans, of SDM Law Group in West Hartford, referred in the hearing to the binding nature of the agreement signed by Luari.
A spokesperson for Blue Back also declined to comment.
Already, the landscape is shifting at one former Luari restaurant, the now-closed bakery in Hartford’s South End. Luari opened her first restaurant at 615 Franklin Ave. in 2016.
A sign in the window heralds that Joey B’s, a Berlin-based restaurant, will soon open its second location in the space this spring.
Luari said she invested $200,000 converting the South End restaurant to the bakery, and it reopened just last summer. Luari was locked out of the refurbished space with everything left just as it was the last time she was there.
“There’s still cash in the till,” Luari said.
Marconi Enterprises LLC of Hartford, the owner of the Franklin Avenue building, declined to be interviewed.
Kenneth R. Gosselin can be reached at kgosselin@courant.com.
