Hoffbrau Steakhouse Sues Renaissance Over Slow Business

The developers of the Renaissance Tower project in downtown Fayetteville have at least one other thing to worry about besides what kind of bathroom fixtures to install, monthly penalty payments to the City of Fayetteville or the growing perception the 18-story hotel may be a pipe dream.

The owners of Hoffbrau Steakhouse, which closed in December 2005 a few months after demolition of the old Mountain Inn began, sued developers Alexander Merry-Shipp & Alt and CDI Contractors on Jan. 14 claiming the Center Street closure and noise forced them out of business.

It’s quite a change from a May 23, 2005, article in the Northwest Arkansas Times in which Hoffbrau owner Margaret Charboneau looked forward to breakfast business from construction workers and praised developers Richard Alexander and John Nock for the lengths they went to in order to help her and neighbors A Taste of Thai and Petra Café.

Back then, Charboneau said the first four days of the street closure hadn’t impacted business.

“We were so busy Monday and Tuesday it was comical,” she said, adding, “The benefit in 18 months outweighs any disruptions.”

We went back and checked Fayetteville tax records for 2005-07 to see if we could determine what, if any, effect the construction or lack thereof has had on TOT and Petra.

Hoffbrau did $541,000 in sales from December 2004 to November 2005, an average of $45,000 per month. In December 2005, the month it closed, it did $38,000 in sales, a decline of 15 percent.

In 2005, TOT did $322,000 in sales and Petra had $45,000. In 2006, TOT had $299,000 in sales, a drop of about 10 percent that included two weeks when it was closed. Petra’s sales jumped to $60,000.

For the first 10 months of 2007, TOT was on pace to beat 2006 with $251,000 in sales, as was Petra with $51,000.