Restaurateur Buys Back Slow-Growing Pebbles Chain

Area restaurant brokers familiar with the transaction tell GlobeSt.com on condition of anonymity the estimated purchase price is $9 million or about $3 million each for the three restaurants in suburban Longwood, FL, Lake Buena Vista, FL near Walt Disney World and Downtown. Garcia has always owned the Pebbles unit in Winter Park, FL.

The 57-year-old Garcia and Larry Stuart, former regional food/beverage director, Lowe's Hotels, will operate the four restaurants as the Garcia-Stuart Hospitality Alliance. Larry Buell, a longtime Pebbles manager, will be operations director.

Garcia, Stuart and Manuchia couldn't be reached at GlobeSt.com's publication deadline. But brokers following the restaurant industry locally tell GlobeSt.com the deal was done because the Pebbles chain wasn't meeting annual growth expectations. A fifth Pebbles restaurant at Saks Fifth Avenue in the Florida Mall will be closed.

Garcia opened the first Pebbles in 1986 at 17 West Church St. Downtown near the center of the city's then vibrant entertainment district highlighting Church Street Station. That Downtown location remains one of the chain's strongest units, restaurant brokers tell GlobeSt.com.

A career restaurateur and a graduate of Cornell University's School of Culinary Arts, Garcia has operated successful restaurants for 30 years. In 1996, he sold his 60-unit Burger King portfolio for $56 million or an average $982,456 per location. Garcia was Burger King's largest franchise operator in Florida.

He recently helped launch Hue restaurant in the redeveloped Thornton Park district of Downtown and the Boheme Restaurant in developer Richard Kessler's $35 million Westin Grand Bohemian Hotel on Orange Avenue in the central business district.