“Faucets will likely be closed till additional discover,” learn the signal taped to the entrance entrance of the Brea Faucets Fish Home and Brewery on Friday, July 7. The restaurant had served the group since 1999 and sparked an empire that grew to 5 places.
The sudden announcement extends to Faucets’ different eating places and breweries in Tustin, Yorba Linda, and Corona. Roughly 200 workers are affected.
“That is nothing remotely near a restaurant closure of any normalcy,” Faucets founder Joe Manzella stated Saturday. “It’s the full and whole collapse of a $30 million restaurant group that has been in enterprise for 1 / 4 century.”
The restaurant and brewery, which has produced award-winning lagers and ales over the previous twenty years, helped lead the craft-beer motion in Orange County whereas cementing Brea as a destination-dining spot.
Manzella, chief govt of Manzella Restaurant Group and acknowledged as certainly one of Orange County’s most profitable impartial restaurateurs, opened Faucets Fish Home and Brewery in Brea in 1999 alongside along with his sister and late father.
“Manzella hit the bull’s-eye with Faucets, which appealed to everybody from rich businessmen to sports activities followers to date-night {couples},” the Orange County Register reported in 2014. Following the success of his first eatery, he opened places in Yorba Linda, Anaheim, Tustin (a sprawling 19,000-square-foot brewery), and Corona.
The closure of all Faucets eating places comes on the heels of Manzella’s different ventures shuttering. The Catch in Anaheim closed in 2021, reportedly resulting from pandemic-related causes, and Lillie’s Q ceased operations in 2017.
In 2020, Manzella Restaurant Group tapped restaurant trade veteran Randy Teffeteller, founder and managing companion of West Coast Ventures and Sources, as performing CEO. He was terminated in September 2022, in line with a letter supplied by Manzella. The letter alleges dozens of issues with the eating places’ administration.
A telephone name to Teffeteller went to voicemail, whereas an e mail to West Coast Ventures and Sources bounced again undelivered.
Manzella contends that monetary mismanagement finally pressured the corporate into debt consolidation, which, partially, led to the closures.
“There was no operational concern,” he stated. “We didn’t all of the sudden overlook easy methods to serve Chilean sea bass and Irish Purple.”
When requested if he hopes to reopen Faucets, Manzella says, with out hesitation, “Completely.”
