National hospitality group buying assets of Portland's Little Giant, to open new concept
COURTESY / GIN & LUCK
Little Giant in Portland has been acquired by a New York-based restaurant group.
National hospitality chain Gin & Luck, which started as a cocktail bar in New York, bought the assets of Little Giant restaurant in Portland and will be opening under a new name and concept.
Gin & Luck, which owns Death & Co. cocktail bars in New York, Denver and Los Angeles, will lease the space at Danforth and Clark Streets from Little Giant’s owner Ian Malin.
Malin said he approached the existing management of Little Giant about buying the restaurant, but after they declined he went to look for an outside buyer. He had a connection to Gin & Luck’s team, so the deal grew from there. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
“Notwithstanding the challenges of the moment, the business was doing very well this summer,” Malin told Mainebiz.
Malin said he has no plans to do another restaurant in Portland or anywhere else, but instead plans to concentrate on his other job in the aviation industry.
Little Giant announced the sale during a week when it closed for a break due to a staffing shortage, Malin said.
“As the deal came together, we felt the right thing to do was to make an immediate announcement instead of reopening and then announcing the sale,” Malin said.
Malin said he paid all employees the same severance of 60 hours at $18 an hour, as well as accrued paid time off. He’s also working to extend the health insurance of those who had it through the restaurant.
“The feedback online was that it wasn’t a very generous severance,” Malin said.
Gin & Luck partner and chief operating officer Alex Day has been a Portland resident for more than two years.
“Moving to Portland was transformative for me, both personally and professionally.” Day said.
He said the food and beverage community in Portland has “blown me away by their deep love of hospitality, culinary creativity and enlightened business practices and I’m thrilled by the chance to contribute in a small way.”
Gin & Luck said it would release more details on its plans for the space in the coming weeks. Day said he aims to create a new concept — not a Death & Co. outpost — that would be unique to Portland. It will rely heavily on the company's expertise in cocktails, as well as provide meals and snacks, Day said.
"My head is swirling with the possibilities. I want to collaborate with the amazingly dynamic energy already in Portland and contribute meaningfully in a new way," Day said.
Day said the Little Giant location appealed to the group because it was off the beaten path, integrated into the neighborhood to appeal to both locals and tourists, and located in the West End.
Gin & Luck Hospitality Group is raising money through a crowdsourcing platform, Seedinvest, to finance strategic growth and has ambitions to expand beyond Portland to Washington, D.C., Chicago and elsewhere, Day said.
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'The feedback online was that it wasn't a very generous severance' .. That was weirdly tacked-on in the article, but the reason he received that feedback is because it wasn't very generous. 60*18 = 1080, and severance pay is considered 'taxable', so after-tax the employees probably got about $750 each. That's 60% of the average single month's rent of a one-bedroom apartment in Portland. Obviously the restaurant industry has suffered a lot in the past year and a half, but if, as he says, "the business was doing very well this summer," that seems pretty stingy. Extending the health insurance and paying out accrued PTO is nice, but I doubt that most of the staff (cooks, servers, bartenders) were receiving either one.
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