Ambrosia Restaurant Owners File Chapter 7
Ambrosia, long-considered among Orange County’s most elegant restaurants, has filed a petition for liquidation under Chapter 7 of the federal bankruptcy code.
The restaurant, which had thrived for 10 years in Newport Beach, moved to Costa Mesa in 1983 but was unable to earn a profit and closed earlier this year. It is owned by Ambrosia Restaurants, a privately owned corporation, which said it has debts of nearly $1.2 million and assets of only $10,000.
The bankruptcy petition was filed Tuesday in federal bankruptcy court in Santa Ana by Ambrosia Restaurants owners George Lenahan and Geril and Gosta Muller, all of Tustin.
The petition also covered a second restaurant, Le Premier, which Ambrosia Restaurants operated at the same Costa Mesa location.
Among the largest debts listed are $57,000 to Bank of Newport; $19,000 to W.R. Merry Co., a Los Angeles-based restaurant supplier; $8,493 to Collins Flowers of Anaheim; $7,260 to J & F Communications and Vecchil Communications of Brea, and $5,765 to Challenge Dairy Products Inc. of Dublin, Calif.
Ambrosia, which opened in Costa Mesa in June, 1983, and closed in March, 1985, employed 120 workers at its peak.
Lenahan declined to comment Wednesday and neither the Mullers nor the company’s attorney could be reached.
But in a recent interview, Geril Muller blamed the restaurants’ problems on the move to Costa Mesa. He said that he relocated Ambrosia when his Newport Beach landlords attempted to double the rent, but that he later came to regret the move.
“Newport Beach is where the business is. Not Costa Mesa,” Muller said in that interview. “There are not enough well-traveled people in Costa Mesa to support a first-class restaurant. Anything exclusive will not work there.”
Muller said he spent between $2 million and $3 million on improvements to the new restaurants, virtually gutting the building, which housed a restaurant before Muller and his partners took it over. But the new facility was nearly three times the size of the original Ambrosia and failed to attract large dining crowds. “We were probably too ambitious,” Muller admitted.
While in Newport Beach, he said, Ambrosia did more than $2 million in business annually. In Costa Mesa, however, the owners of the combined Ambrosia and Le Premier “lost $1,000 a day just for coming to work.”
But it was the 1984 Summer Olympics that was the crushing blow to Ambrosia. While all of Orange County suffered a tourism drought, Ambrosia saw some evenings with only a handful of customers, Muller said.
Famous during its glory days for its five-hour, single-sitting meals, the restaurant frequently attracted the elite of Orange County, including a number of television and motion picture stars.
Dinners at the posh restaurant typically averaged $150 for a party of two. Ambrosia served so many flaming dishes that it once had to obtain special permits from the Newport Beach Fire Department.
