CLEVELAND, Ohio – A Rascal Flatts-themed restaurant and bar won’t join the lineup at the Flats East Bank project after all, in a scuttled deal that’s not unique to downtown Cleveland.
The country trio has cut ties with developer RF Restaurants, the Nevada-based company that once planned to open Rascal Flatts venues in cities including Pittsburgh; St. Louis; suburban Chicago; Des Moines, Iowa; and Gainesville, Florida, according to a statement posted online.
“Because we know you have been looking forward to enjoying our themed restaurants, we wanted to let you know that this project is no longer happening. We ended the agreement and do not have a business relationship with the developer. They are not authorized to use our name in any way,” the band wrote in a message addressed to fans on Friday evening.
A publicist confirmed Tuesday that the statement applies to all proposed Rascal Flatts locations. The band said it never had an ownership stake or development role in the projects.
— Rascal Flatts (@rascalflatts) January 11, 2019
When plans for the 10,000-square-foot restaurant at the Flats East Bank were unveiled in March 2016, the project was the first such concept eatery announced nationwide. The space originally was set to open later that year. Then in 2017. Then by mid-2018.
But construction stalled, in a collapse eerily similar to the failure of a once-planned Toby Keith’s I Love This Bar & Grill at the 23-acre, mixed-use riverfront project. The restaurant groups behind both country-western deals missed deadline after deadline – and ended up, across the country, mired in disputes with contractors and lawsuits with landlords.
Flats East Bank developer Scott Wolstein declined to comment Tuesday.
The RF Restaurants website isn’t active.
An Ohio corporation filing for RF Restaurants II, LLC, a company formed in Las Vegas in 2015 and registered here in late 2016, lists the address of an attorney in Scottsdale, Arizona, and identifies a woman named Tawny Costa as a company representative. The attorney, Shawn Richter, couldn’t be reached for comment.
Neither could Costa, who appears to live in the Scottsdale area.
Ray Roshto of Ussher Construction, an Arizona company listed on the building permit for the Cleveland restaurant, said RF Restaurants wasn’t paying the bills. Roshto said he was acting as a consultant on the construction project but walked away last year.
“Whatever they were doing, I didn’t want no part of,” he said of the restaurant group.
A Rascal Flatts eatery did open in Stamford, Connecticut, in 2017 but closed last year.
Roshto raised the prospect of a connection between the developers of the failed Toby Keith restaurants and the Rascal Flatts deal. In 2017, the Arizona Republic identified Costa as the girlfriend of Frank Capri, the figure behind the Toby Keith projects. Costa’s name also appears on public records along with that of Chris Burka, the RF Restaurants representative who was the public face of negotiations in Cleveland and other cities.
Landlords in California, Florida and Pennsylvania are in disputes with RF Restaurants affiliates over claims of unpaid rent and breached lease agreements. Court records don’t turn up any litigation related to the Flats East Bank project.
The Rascal Flatts space, on the ground floor of an apartment building near the Cuyahoga River, is partially finished. A short walk north, a Jimmy Buffett’s Margaritaville now occupies the building once earmarked for Toby Keith’s.
https://www.cleveland.com/business/2019/01/rascal-flatts-restaurant-falls-through-at-the-flats-east-bank-project-in-cleveland.html 2019-01-15 23:26:00Z
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