MUKILTEO — A federal bankruptcy judge a week ago ordered the sale of the company that runs a local sports-bar chain, including the Mukilteo Lodge and Mill Creek Lodge.
Lodge Holdings Co. will be purchased for $2.1 million by Bellevue-based CBC Partners. The Mukilteo company, also known as the Lodge Sports Grille, was started by Shawn Roten.
Roten wanted to keep the company, but U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Timothy W. Dore determined that the best way to pay creditors was to sell the company to CBC Partners.
“We think it is a profitable business,” said Larry Feinstein, one of the bankruptcy attorneys in the case. “We think over a period of time we could have paid the creditors back through operations.”
CBC president and CEO John Otter said in a phone message that the sports bars will remain open, but he couldn’t talk about the direction of the business right now.
“We’re getting our heads around it,” Otter said. “We’re not closing any stores. We don’t plan on doing anything different for the foreseeable future.”
Lodge Holdings owned six sports bars and restaurants, including Mukilteo Lodge at 7928 Mukilteo Speedway and Mill Creek Lodge, 15117 Main St. in Mill Creek. Other sports bars involved in the sale include one in Kirkland and three in Seattle. The Mukilteo sports bar was the first to open.
“When you walked into the Lodge, you felt like you just skied into your favorite place, your favorite pub,” said Shawn Roten in a 2013 YouTube video about the sports bar. “I mean it had the Northwest feel. It was wood. It was comfortable, there was a fireplace. It just felt like I can sit here for a couple of hours with my buddies and hang out.”
The sale is “whereas and as is,” meaning that CBC Partners will need to work out lease agreements with the property owners.
The primary creditors were the Internal Revenue Service and the state Department of Revenue, said Feinstein, the Seattle-based attorney who represented the company.
“The secured claims of the Internal Revenue Service will not be satisfied from the sale proceeds, but the Internal Revenue Service has consented to the allocation of sale proceeds, and to less than complete payment of its secured claims, as provided in this order,” according to the court documents.
Jim Davis: 425-339-3097; jdavis@heraldnet.com; Twitter: @HBJnews.
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