After seeing his restaurant-owner career implode, Greg Goldfogel is rebuilding his business one jar at a time.
Goldfogel owned Amore in Cherry Creek North, then moved downtown to open Alto, a mega-space that had housed Sambuca, a jazz club and restaurant at 15th and Market streets, when the short-term lease on Amore ran out.
With Alto, he thought he could replicate the intimate atmosphere and hands-on proprietor style he had built at Amore, but that failed. Broke and facing bankruptcy, Goldfogel shut Alto’s doors in June 2009.
The flame-out was not atypical of someone with no restaurant experience who wanted to open his own spot.
“I was that guy who had never done a restaurant before and thought I could make it work,” said Goldfogel, who recently filed bankruptcy on a seven-figure debt.
The neophyte restaurateur, who opened Amore in 2003, knew he would lose his lease in 2007 when the landlord leveled the building to make way for Houston’s.
“Not being a restaurant guy, a short-term lease with no partners and no debt made sense,” he said.
But the behemoth building that housed Alto swallowed Goldfogel whole.
“I spent nine months curled up into a hole and did a lot of soul- searching and pity-partying,” Goldfogel said.
Then his uncle, Arthur Kroll, who lent Goldfogel the seed money for Amore and never expected to see that money again, died. That was a wake-up call.
“People kept asking me, ‘When are you going to reopen?’ ” he said. “I said, ‘I’m not.’ They said, ‘What about just getting us your products?’ “
So he scooped up popular recipes from both restaurants, found space in a commercial kitchen and started producing wholesale pasta sauces, tapenade, vinaigrette, biscotti, gelato desserts and the Amore flourless chocolate torte one order at a time.
As of today, the products are available at amorenaturalfoods , but Goldfogel has been pounding the pavement to get onto specialty-food-store shelves. Stay tuned.
Catering conquest.
Occasions by Sandy catering kings Jeremy Bronson and David Tenenbaum are expanding the business started by David’s parents, Sandy and Barry Tenenbaum, with the acquisition of Purple Avocado, a company known for box lunches.
Occasions will rebrand that division Occasions on the Go and target businesses looking for box lunches for meetings and other events.
“This will accelerate our growth in the corporate market,” Bronson said. “We’re real ly excited to incorporate their offering and clients into our portfolio.”
Tebow time.
Every restaurateur knows that sports-celebrity sightings in their establishment causes the kind of buzz that can ring the cash register.
So P.F. Chang’s general manager Bob Sweeney was pleased to attract newest Broncos quarterback Tim Tebow to the LoDo restaurant Saturday.
“It was nice to see (Tebow) stop in for dinner with his brother on Saturday night . . . after his big day with the kids at Invesco Field,” Sweeney wrote in an e-mail.
Tebow and other players spent Saturday playing at the Broncos Kids Club event at Invesco Field at Mile High.
EAVESDROPPING
A woman and a man at Green Valley Ranch Golf Club discussing moles:
“I check my own body.”
“Well, you’re the only one.”
Penny Parker’s column appears Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Sunday. Listen to her on the Caplis and Silverman radio show between 4 and 5 p.m. Fridays on KHOW-630 AM. Call her at 303-954-5224 or e-mail pparker@ .
