🠈 The Capital Grille 🠊
The Capital Grille
The Capital Grille is a chain if finer steakhouses. The site listed 60 restaurants when I visited the site in Sept 2019.
Ned Grace founded an upscale restaurant in a rundown neighborhood of Providence, Rhode Island during the recession of 1990. Somehow it worked and was pulling in $4 million a year revenue within 7 years.1
In 1996 Grace started a second chain in Millburn, New Jersey named Bugaboo Creek Steakhouse after the Bugaboo Mountains of British Columbia. This chain also became a success.
According to Wikipedia1, Bugaboo Steakhouse held an IPO in 1994. In 1996 Bugaboo Corporation and LongHorn Steakhouse merged in a stock swap. The merged company took the name RARE Hospitality in 1997 and traded on the NASDAQ with the symbol RARE. I could not find a good source detailing this merger.
In 2007, RARE sold Bugaboo to Charlie Brown Fresh Grill and Steakhouse in a deal financed by Trimarian Capital. The restaurant giant Darden Restaurants then acquired RARE Hospitality in a deal worth $1.4 billion.2
In 2010, Charlie Brown Holding company declared bankruptcy. CB Holdings closed most of the Bugaboo Steakhouse restaurants. The last Bugaboo bugged out in 2018.
2018: Darden created a spinoff called The Capital Burger which had a single restaurant as of Oct 2019 in Washington, DC.3
References:
- Wikipedia-City Grill (Drawn 10/14/2019)
- Darden Acquires RARE (Drawn 10/14/2019)
- Washington Post - Capital Burger (Drawn 10/14/2019)
Directory Listings:
- Phoenix Color - Dining: Capital Grille
- Denver Color - Denver Color: Capital Grille