Who owns ponderosa restaurant

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Money was going into unproductive investments like land, and legitimate creditors like equipment manufacturers weren't being paid. The company was insolvent by December , and some creditors made moves to foreclose. The chain's credit was so bad that Wiese and Lasater were forced to take out personal loans to keep it afloat. At that time, they promoted year-old Gerald S. Office, Jr. Office helped turn Ponderosa around. By mid, the company had recovered enough to warrant a new stock offering.

At that point Lasater, a year-old multimillionaire, retired. Ponderosa's managers got their first inkling of the beef industry's cyclical nature when a mids recession saw earnings tumble by more than 80 percent. But the chain recovered along with the nation in the late s. The roller coaster ride continued in the s, however.

From to , Ponderosa's return on equity averaged 9. Ponderosa's poor results were blamed on a variety of problems. Over half of the chain's restaurants were located in the Midwest's "rust belt," which was then enduring a major transition from its traditional manufacturing base to a more service-oriented economic base. Moreover, due to a lack of reinvestment, Ponderosa restaurants were becoming run-down and dated.

The company also failed to quickly change its menus to accommodate American dietary trends that were increasingly calling for healthier fare, such as fish and chicken. In an effort to balance out its changeable returns, Ponderosa attempted an early s diversification within the restaurant industry. He hoped that the chain's high meal tabs, low food costs, and fatter profit margins would be the formula for more consistent earnings at Ponderosa Systems.

Ponderosa became a target of several takeover attempts during this period. The first came in , when General Host Corp.

Then, in , third-ranking Bonanza U. Although the Wylys offered a ten percent premium over their rival's prevailing stock price, the leading chain's board rejected the offer as inadequate. Ponderosa's takeover defense cost it hundreds of thousands, but the company did manage to repel the threat. In , Ponderosa hired Thomas J.

Russo as president. Russo had enjoyed a long career with Howard Johnson Restaurants, and had been credited with engineering a successful two-year turnaround at the struggling chain. He hoped to build Ponderosa into a 1,location chain by Instead, the mid-to-late s deteriorated into a "baffling and demoralizing" time for Ponderosa and especially its franchisees, who operated over 40 percent of the chain's more than locations. Increased competition within the budget steak segment combined with management and ownership instability to create an extremely difficult operating environment.

A Ponderosa franchisee recalled in a article by Bill Carlino of Nation's Restaurant News : "I don't care how good you are; you can't operate successfully with three leaders in three years. In , takeover artist Asher Edelman made his play for Ponderosa with the purchase of The takeover shocked many restaurant industry observers. Charles Bernstein of Nation's Restaurant News editorialized that Ponderosa was "just a financial toy in Edelman's growing network of unrelated companies" and mourned "the loss of [the restaurant industry's] entrepreneurial spirit" in a March commentary.