Daroos Pizza in Crookston opened about a year ago and recently picked up new management hoping boost the budding business. Julie and Larry Love became the general managers in recent weeks.
Rumors were circling that the couple was buying the business, and while Julie says that is a possibility down the road they are currently focused on being general managers for the restaurant. “Larry and I are just going to be the general managers for now,” said Julie. “Potentially we may buy it in the future, but for now we’ll just be the general managers.”
Daroos was the recipient of the first B3 (Building, Better, Business) Grant from CHEDA at their April meeting. The grant was issued to the current owners of the building, Amanda and Jamie Grover. B3 grants need to be paid back at 50 percent if a business ceases to operate within two years. KROX asked CHEDA Executive Director Craig Hoiseth what would happen if a business was sold during that time. Hoiseth said that discussion will need to go before the CHEDA board as they hadn’t previously discussed such as circumstance. “That was the first B3 grant that we put out this week,” said Hoiseth. “We did confirm with the existing owners that they were planning to retain ownership and the potential owners are just there managing at this point. There was nothing imminent to that transaction happening. I think the conditions of the [grant] essentially are that the business needs to stay in business for a couple of years otherwise they need to pay back 50 percent of that B3 grant. If it changed ownership I think that would have to be something the board would have to discuss because we hadn’t exactly identified how an equity change would trigger that. There is a potential I like for a request that half of that grant comes back unless the new owners had a similar strategy in place for owning and operating that business.”
The Love’s are planning to rearrange the dining room, offering buffets and cater to sports teams after their games. “We had carpet cleaners in yesterday and moved the booths around,” said Julie. “We have someone coming to de-core the walls and are working on expanding the buffet. We’ll move that around to a different location when we get the new equipment in. We are wanting to do an evening buffet, a Saturday supper buffet and an after-church buffet on Sundays.”
Daroos has already begun serving their lunch buffet, although that will expand once the new buffet equipment arrives.
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