Donnelly Group selling pubs and restaurants in Vancouver and Toronto

Donnelly Group selling 7 pubs in Vancouver and 1 in Toronto as restaurant group restructures

freehouse.ca

Bad news, bar lovers. A major restructuring at one of Vancouver and Toronto’s biggest restaurant groups has led to the potential sale of seven bars and pubs.

Back in May, Daily Hive broke the story that the Donnelly Group, now rebranded as The Freehouse Collective, had initiated Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act proceedings in the BC Supreme Court because it owed more than $20 million on its lines of credit, unpaid rent, taxes, and business expenses.

At the time, there were fears that many employees at more than a dozen establishments would be out of work, and that beloved spots like The Lamplighter in Vancouver’s Gastown neighbourhood would be forced to close.

The Lamplighter Public House in Gastown. (Darryl Brooks/Shutterstock)

We are now learning more in a new report about which businesses will be sold off after they were deemed unprofitable, and some hints at one of the new owners who will be taking over the space.

The documents filed in BC Supreme Court last week show seven of the eight pubs are in Vancouver. They are the Cinema Public House, Three Brits Public House, Brass Fish Tavern, Hello Goodbye, Granville Room, Butcher & Bullock Public House, and Bomber Brewing. The Lamplighter is not on the list.

Cinema Public House

The Three Brits Public House at 1780 Davie St, Vancouver is across from popular English Bay Beach. (freehouse.ca)

Brass Fish Tavern is inside the Marine Building at 385 Burrard St, Vancouver, (Donnelly Group)

Hello Goodbye at 1120 Hamilton Street. @hellogoodbyebar/Instagram

East Vancouver’s Bomber Brewing is at 1488 Adanac Street. (Courtesy: Bomber Brewing)

The Toronto pub is the Death & Taxes Free House on Queen Street.

Death & Taxes in Toronto. (@shee.wolf/Instagram)

While seven of the pubs are set to be sold off, the eighth already appears to have a buyer, pending court approval for the Cinema Public House at 901 Granville Street for $430,000.

While sales of this nature are typically posted on MLS to invite more buyers, the filing detailed that this was not necessary in this case because the sale was known, as was that the business had been branded unprofitable and that the insolvency would not garner major profits.

The building is owned by the City of Vancouver, and therefore a Property Negotiations Supervisor was brought in to oversee the sale and the new lease agreements, however, Carvan Sung raised some concerns.

“There is also no documentation that the consideration payable by 1442029 B.C. Ltd. for the Purchase Price was negotiated directly by the Brokerage with regard to the value of the 10 Year Cinema Lease.; (a) though the Depondent swears that ‘144 will repay the lease arrears of $97,782.08 on or soon after closing,’ there is no term such term that appears in the 144 MLS Agreement, and if it can be inferred, there is no indication as to what is meant by ‘on or soon after’ under the 144 MLS Agreement.”

Additionally, the new owners, identified as a married couple named Amrinderveer Chahal and Apury Yogeshkumar Modi, did not have an extensive history with restaurants and appeared to have only been in that industry through a small restaurant in Edmonton and a Subway.

For that reason, the previous owner will be required to train employees.

“As detailed in the addendums to the Cinema Agreement dated November 1, 2023, and January 17, 2024, Cinema has agreed that Freehouse — a company controlled by Mr. Donnelly through which management services are provided to the Petitioners — will provide certain training to 144 as a condition of the sale, for six weeks and for a total of 220 hours, in exchange for the Transition Services Fee,” the document reads in part.

The lease for the Cinema Public House, which they will take over, is $30,000 a month.

With files from Megan Devlin

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Editor’s note: An earlier version said six of the seven restaurants are in Vancouver. That has been corrected to seven of eight.