Audio By Carbonatix
Pay up
Just two days after New York-based Toscorp closed Coco Pazzo on McKinney Avenue on May 29, a creditor asked a U.S. bankruptcy court to force New C.P. Inc., the corporation formed to purchase the assets of the defunct Sfuzzi restaurant chain, into bankruptcy. Toscorp formed New C.P. Inc. when it took control of the assets of Sfuzzi Inc. in a 1996 bankruptcy auction. Operating 18 restaurants nationwide, the company says it will file a motion to dismiss the bankruptcy petition–resulting from a late debt payment–in early July because only one creditor, instead of the required three, is attempting to force the bankruptcy action. The company believes the petition is nothing more than a negotiating ploy to accelerate payments on unsecured promissory notes generated from its Sfuzzi acquisition.
Toscorp founder Pino Luongo admitted he was less than enthusiastic about the Sfuzzi’s locations in Addison and Dallas his company inherited and converted to Coco Pazzo restaurants following the acquisition. Both were closed within months of the conversion because they performed below expectations. But Luongo doesn’t rule out a return to Dallas with his latest concept, Tuscan Square. This Tuscan lifestyle emporium features a combination restaurant, bar, and retail shop. Luongo says he has his eye on NorthPark Center as a possible Dallas location.
Munch went the trolley
The McKinney Avenue Transit Association says it will launch dining-car service on the McKinney Avenue trolley line in September that will be catered by a different local restaurant each month. On Friday, Saturday, and Sunday evenings, the car will serve salad while in transit, park near the Dallas Museum of Art for entrees with wine service, and conclude with dessert and coffee as the car moves to the other end of McKinney Avenue. The association will add a specially restored, air-conditioned dining car when a planned five-mile trolley line extension to the West End DART station is completed sometime before 2000. Clive & Stuart’s Island Seafood will inaugurate the service this fall.
List watch
Texas wine production hit record levels in 1997, totaling 1.62 million gallons, according to the Texas Wine Marketing Research Institute. That represents a 17 percent increase over the previous record of 1.39 million gallons set in 1992. Texas currently ranks fifth among wine-producing states behind California, New York, Washington, and Oregon.
–Mark Stuertz
