Sassafras Eclectic Food Joint and Plan: b Microlounge must exit the building at 318 N. Carson St. downtown soon to make way for another restaurant.
Scott Doerr of the restaurant and lounge, as well as Jeff Shaheen of Double Eagle Cubed LLC and Shaheen Beauchamp Builders, confirmed Tuesday the change was coming next month. Double Eagle Cubed owns the Carson City building, which has other tenants along Doerr’s food and lounge operation. Shaheen, Mark Beauchamp and Tom Johnson are principals of Double Eagle Cubed.
“I’ve spent the week informing my employees they’re going to be out of work,” said Doerr, who noted there are 30 employees working there. He said they’ve vowed to stick with him if he can find another location and reopen, but he has only until the end of July in his current location. He said he was told June 16 Sassafras and Plan: b had 45 days to leave, marking the exit deadline as midnight on July 31.
“The restaurant has never done better,” Doerr said, adding he is hustling to check out various alternative spots. The restaurant won best taste during Saturday’s Taste of Downtown.
Shaheen said another restaurant operator in the area would move into the approximately 4,500 square feet being vacated after some sprucing up work is completed.
“There won’t be a tremendous amount of conversion,” he said.
He didn’t identify the imminent tenant, but said it isn’t a national chain and he would contact representatives about making a public announcement when they feel the time is appropriate.
“We’re very, very excited to work with these folks,” he said.
He also wished Sassafras the best going forward.
“They’ve been good tenants,” Shaheen said.
Shaheen said Carson Cigar Co. on the main floor of the building and three upper floor office tenants would remain.
Doerr, meanwhile, said among the multiple locations he’s checking is the vacated High Sierra Brewing Co. space at 302 N. Carson St. He said he has talked with Steve Neighbors of the Hop & Mae Adams Foundation, which has that structure through a property holding firm, as well as Neighbors’ representatives. Asked about the brewing equipment and opportunity that location presents for combining beer-making with food service, he expressed interest.
“I was a brewmaster,” he said of work elsewhere, “and we’ve got a successful food concept.” But he said negotiations take time and his window for relocation is small, so he is looking at whatever is available.
“Ideally, for us, we would like to stay downtown,” said Doerr, but he also has looked outside that core area.
He said he first opened B’Sghettis, an Italian restaurant, at the 318 N. Carson spot in 1997 when he was 27-years-old. He said he started it with $6,000. When Olive Garden, a national chain, came to 4253 S. Carson St. in mid-2011, he converted his restaurant concept and renamed it Sassafras.