CHICAGO—Lovell's of Lake Forest, IL, a fine dining restaurant that was owned by Jim Lovell, NASA astronaut and commander of the Apollo 13 mission, was recently purchased by NorthShore University HealthSystem. It plans to repurpose the building into a medical facility. The property was originally developed for Lovell's son, who is a chef. For Rick Scardino, the Chicago-based retail director of Lee & Associates and broker who represented Lovell, the transaction seems like part of a growing trend: the fine-dining, wear-a-tie establishments – once so popular with American diners, are now rapidly disappearing from the landscape. GlobeSt.com sat down with Scardino to talk about Lovell's and the fate of these establishments and how real estate professionals can respond.

Q: How has restaurant brokerage in fine dining changed since you started in CRE?
A: I actually grew up in our family restaurant businesses. The last restaurant we had started as fine dining and then midstream we converted it to a family casual format, so I have seen this trend evolving slowly for decades. Fine dining restaurants are becoming scarcer in general as too often they become the favorite destination for special occasions and unfortunately these types of events are not as prominent today as they were in the past. So the flow that is needed to sustain this type of format are disappearing.

Q: What has been the primary factor in driving the change in this market?
A: Economics, time, and casual attire. When the economy tightens people become selective in their shopping and dining choices. In some cases, these choices are eliminated completely. Thus the full serve department store consumer may go the way of a JCP's or Kohl's and a fine dining customer may trend towards a mid-range steakhouse, family-casual chain, or a trip to Costco to pick up the steaks and wine and cook on their own 800' Big Green Egg.

Q: Are we seeing this trend nationwide?
A: By all indications yes. This may not hold true for the hot CBD's across the country, which often seem to have another new steakhouse or fine dining spot opening monthly, but keep in mind, there is always much more fanfare with openings than with closings.

Q: In the case of Lovell's, which had an excellent track record in this industry, its closing was prompted by dwindling numbers of customers so obviously another restaurant was not the answer to filling this space. How did you determine what markets would be right for this property?
A: When I was procuring the listing I managed expectations by telling the family that while highest and best use may still be as a restaurant, the end buyer may have different plans. We went after fine dining and the major restaurant operators early but the size and lack of a regional mall in its immediate trade area made that unlikely. We then went after day spas as the infrastructure in many respects could have been ideal. Last but not least was medical office which was our eventual buyer, North Shore Community Health Systems, who will put additional millions into the building along with a slight expansion, to create an outstanding facility. The fact that they were willing to not only save the existing building, but add on and feature a number of museum quality artifacts on loan from Captain Lovell made for an easier process.

Q: Like record stores, which gradually disappeared from the retail landscape, but seem to be coming back, do you see a return of the Lovell's type of dining, or is that now a thing of the past?

A: Lovell's was an incredible physical plant of close to 18,000 square feet designed and built by a well renowned local restaurant architect and was simply overbuilt for today's operators. Had the building been 6,000 square feet it may have survived but it was trapped in a building triple that size and along with that comes the overhead. While fine dining is by no means dead it certainly is being done in much more selective and pinpointed locations. Many millennials are willing to pay more for better food than the baby boomers were at a similar age. They don't need or desire the elaborate buildout that many fine dining operations offer but are more concerned about organic, local, snout to tail and high quality offerings. This will be the “fine dining” of the future in many cases, much different than what we have seen in decade's past. People of all ages seem to have a disdain for dressing up as well so the atmosphere of these restaurants will be toned down to meet them where they are. There was a cliché that we used in the industry decades ago, “Put it on the plate instead of the paper.” The same can be said of atmosphere. Operators, architects, designers will need to be more creative to keep costs down so that these fine dining restaurants can enjoy a more regular customer base and lose the special occasion niche.

Q: Did you get to deal much with Captain Lovell when selling the restaurant?
A: Yes, as a matter of fact he not surprisingly is a very hands-on guy to this day. He is still very much in demand and speaks all over the world. While I never had the pleasure of hearing him speak, I had thoroughly enjoyed working closely with him, his son the chef Jay Lovell and his executive assistant Mary Weeks, which made the process as seamless as possible.