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Photo by: Heather Coit/The News-Gazette
He wants to get out of the food business and is looking for someone to take over his two restaurants (Silvercreek, Courier Cafe) about two blocks apart on Race Street in Urbana.
"I can't do it forever and at some point — before your health starts to go — you've got to figure out something. And (wife) Nancy, she's desperate to travel and do other things, and we've both worked hard all of our lives and we just feel it's time to let somebody else take over the reins, if there is anybody," said Strong, who turns 64 later this month. "There may not be anybody who's interested. Who knows?"
Take it from Joe Minneci, who also was in the local restaurant business for decades, first at Italian Patio and then Minneci's Ristorante: it isn't easy for the owner of a hometown, independent eatery to sell.
"Selling a business, even one like ours which would be considered a long-time, traditional business — a permanent business because so many of them come and go — we were lucky," said Minneci, who sold his restaurant in 2008. "It's not an easy thing to do nowadays.
"In the restaurant business there are so many chains and they obviously have a lot more power behind them and money and advertising, and they're able to go though storms without falling apart like a little guy. Places like Allen Strong's and ours and Paul's (Damski, the longtime owner of Carmon's in downtown Champaign and a close friend of Minneci), we had the advantage of knowing people in town and being local and having a long-standing clientele that supported us over the years. But even with that there's a point where you can't overcome the chain competition. It's hard to do."
Strong said his restaurants are still doing well and that he finds the work rewarding; he just wants to do something else.
"I built a mini empire with it and it's allowed me to pursue a wonderful hobby (collecting and displaying antique automobiles) in which I've met people from all walks of life from all over the world that I wouldn't otherwise have had an opportunity to meet," he said. "We've been to some incredible places with the cars."
He said no one has ever expressed interest in taking over the restaurants, including his son, who works at a fine restaurant in Portland, Ore.
"I sent Patrick to the best culinary school in the world and he did his externship in Portland and never came back. So instead of taking over the restaurants he's out there working for somebody else," Strong said. "Once they go to Portland they don't come back. They buy into the culture and the lifestyle and that's it.
"It's really funny. No one has ever talked about buying me out. I don't know why. (The Courier is) the longest running, continuous operating restaurant in Champaign County. It's been amazingly successful. After I opened the Courier in 1980 our sales grew every month for 17 years."
Strong got into the restaurant business around 1971 when, at the age of 19, he was a part-owner of a north side Chicago ice cream shop called Doctor Jazz.
"But then I decided I wanted to get out of there and get out of the city and go back to school. I was interested in geology. I had been a spelunker and spent all of my weekends, all of the free time I had, in Brown County, Indiana," he said. "I thought I'd move down here and go back to school in geology."
It never happened.
"Having come from a pretty poor family and without any help from anybody to be able to go to school, I pretty much had to figure out a way to go to school. So I came up with the hare-brained idea of opening a small soup and salad kitchen on campus, devote a year to get that going and then I'd enroll in school," he said of Bubby and Zadie's, a subterranean eatery along Green Street. "But then life happened. I got married and I had kids and was building the business and just decided to take a different path. And in January 1976 there was a big fire in Campustown at Second Chance and it destroyed my business. Well, it only partially destroyed it, but the insurance company would only pay for half of it.
"What happened was that all of the water and fuel oil and junk from Second Chance floated out of there and into my deli. And as it was slowly pumped out it coated everything in my place with it. It was such a mess. So basically I had to decide whether to close up or rebuild and I guess I've always been a builder."
He opted to rebuild, then expanded the business, then opened the Courier in 1980 and Silvercreek in 1990.
The restaurant business is all about long hours and hard work, agreed Strong and Minneci.
"I feel like I've been a huge part of Urbana's growth. When I built the Courier there were 17 empty storefronts in downtown Urbana and people said, 'You're crazy, you'll never make it here. It's a terrible location,'" he recalled. "Five years later, after we were phenomenally successful, people said, 'Oh yeah, you do well because you have a good location.'"
An occasional vacation is possible, Strong said, "but you don't get to go very long and you don't get to go very far."
There are plenty of misconceptions about the business, said Minneci.
"I used to tease with my customers about, 'Hey, you want to get into the restaurant business?' They always tease you with the fact that they come in and see a very busy night and they go, 'Hey, can I come back later and help you count the money?' And I'd say, 'Yeah, come back with your wheelbarrow.'
"But that's how it is. You come in on a busy night and think that we're making money hand over fist. But it's a lot of hard work and I can see why Allen Strong, after so many years, probably wants to do something easier for the rest of his life. That's how we came about this."
Minneci sold his restaurant to Rob Meister, part of a local family who were frequent Minneci's customers.
"We were the lucky ones," he said. "At one point we decided to just put the word out locally to see what would happen.
"One day Diana (Meister, Rob's mother) comes up to the cash register, says everything was great and says, 'Hey, that one time you mentioned to us about a year ago, were you really serious?' And I said, 'I'm willing to talk any time you are.' From that point on things started to roll.
"I can see where Allen Strong is coming from because he's probably tired of competing with everybody. I wish him well. It's not going to be easy. But I hope he makes it."
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For additional information regarding Florida business sales, acquisitions and valuations, please contact Eric J. Gall at Eric@EdisonAvenue.com or 239.738.6227. Also, visit our Edison Avenue website at www.EdisonAvenue.com or my personal website at www.BuySellFLbiz.com.
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