---

BY LINDA HOU

In print | Published March 18, 2010

Donald Delson claims that he never had so much fun losing money as he did with his investment in the recently closed “Bring Your Own Bottle” restaurant “Rudi’s on Park.”

“You have no idea how hard the six of us in the board of managers … worked over the past two years to make an elegant BYOB [for] people in this town,” said Delson, a member of the board of managers of the Swarthmore Restaurant Partners LLC that owned Rudi’s on Park. “I never had so much fun losing so much money in my life.”

After only three months in business, Rudi’s recently announced that it was closing until further notice. According to Delson, the restaurant closed due to the investors’ inability to keep up with the cost of operation. Nevertheless, the borough expresses hope for the future, especially since a new restaurant and new café downtown have been doing well.

Rudi’s on Park opened last November in what was once a private residence. The restaurant offered fine dining, with dinner entrees ranging from $16 to $28, and a Sunday brunch.

Rudi’s on Park is owned by Swarthmore Restaurant Partners LLC, which is composed of roughly 45 investors. The minimum investment for each investor was $5,000, and all investors were asked to confirm that they had a substantial income.

Delson said that even before opening the restaurant, the cost of the restaurant had to be increased. Although the group had originally planned to lease various venues, they eventually chose to buy the residence where Rudi’s on Park now stands. To do so, they asked investors to loan a proportion of money, which would be the percentage of ownership they had on the building.

“We had precautions from the beginning. … This is not going to be your ticket to successful retirement. This was going to be your fun money,” Delson said. “We were not surprised it wasn’t going to be a successful investment, but we were surprised that it wasn’t a successful restaurant.”

Yet the $400,000 purchase was only half of the cost of the building. The group then spent another $400,000 on landscapes and renovations. These costs did not decrease when the restaurant opened.

“Starting when Rudi was working in the restaurant, and Nancy — his wife — was by his side as hostess. From that point, we could not bring down the direct line of costs,” Delson said. “We expected to lose money because I think every new restaurant did that, but the rate at which we were losing was surprising, and it was not going down.”

Delson said that the group will sell all equipment to repay investors, and the three investors who chose to make loans to the purchase of the building have hired an agent to lease the building to another restaurant.

“Swarthmore Restaurant Partners LLC will sell its assets (kitchen equipment, tables and chairs, and tableware) to a group of investors who made a large loan to the LLC, and then will liquidate,” Delson said in an e-mail.

When asked how the closing of Rudi’s will affect the town, Town Center Coordinator Marty Spiegel said that the loss of the restaurant is definitely a blow to the downtown area, but that he is hopeful about the future.

“Any time a business closes, especially a business as important as a restaurant, it is important to downtown. Restaurants are an important aspect of downtown. When we lose something about that, it’s a blow. There’s no question about it,” Spiegel said.

Although Spiegel said that the closing of Rudi’s on Park is not a trend, he said that the economy definitely affects the downtown area.

“I don’t see this as a trend, but let’s face it, in today’s business, small businesses and restaurants are definitely affected by this. When people have less money in their belt, they find ways to spend less,” Spiegel said.

Spiegel said that he believes that another business will replace Rudi’s on Park. He pointed to the success of the replacement of Da Vinci’s Café with Hobbs Coffee, which opened in the fall.
“My hope is that something good will come in its place,” Spiegel said. “There will be hopefully another restaurant coming.”

Hobbs Coffee replaced Da Vinci’s Café, which closed in the spring of 2008. The owner of Hobbs Coffee was unable to be contacted by phone for comment.

“Now we have Hobbs, which is a real benefit to downtown. They certainly have been very popular with both people from the borough and students,” Spiegel said.

Other than the recently opened Hobbs Coffee, Aria Mediterranean Cuisine opened four months ago. Aria Mediterranean Cuisine owner Azim Naderpoor said that his restaurant has been doing well and has been seeing plenty of customers. While he said that he feels sorry for Rudi’s on Park, Naderpoor said that he sees a positive future for Aria.

“I’m worried because he’s my friend. I feel sorry because he’s been waiting for a long time to open a nice restaurant. It’s a nice place,” Naderpoor said about chef Rudi.

Unlike Rudi’s on Park, Aria was opened after Naderpoor had spent many years of providing food to the Swarthmore community. Since moving from Afghanistan to Philadelphia four years ago, Naderpoor has been working at a Mediterranean restaurant, where he sold food at the farmers’ market in Swarthmore.

“We have an advantage because I’ve worked at the farmers’ market for four years and people know the quality of our food,” Naderpoor said. “I just want more customers to try my food and its quality. It’s 70 to 80 percent vegetarian so I’m sure it’ll be good for the college kids.”

---

« RETURN TO NEWS

« PREV ARTICLE | NEXT ARTICLE »