(Updated, 2:30 p.m.)
EAST GREENWICH – The eight corporations of the Marra Restaurant Group will remain in family hands after owner Steve Marra’s brother and father were awarded the right to buy the business at a hearing in Kent County Superior Court on Tuesday.
The KBN Group Inc., which East Greenwich Patch said was incorporated in January by Steve Marra’s relatives, will purchase all of the assets for about $4 million.
The corporations include: Atomic Catering, Pinelli’s Cucina, Twist Restaurant, Twist Restaurant II, the now-closed Post Office Café, the Pinelli-Marra Restaurant Group, The Grille on Main and Pinelli’s Cucina Twist.
Collectively, the entities employ about 400 people, a news release on Thursday said. Under the terms of the sale, all of the restaurants would remain open.
The Marra Restaurant Group went into receivership in December and the receiver, John Savage, put the restaurants up for sale a month later.
The only offer for the business came from the Marras; another bid was on the table for a single property.
“It is the only offer for all the businesses,” Savage told Superior Court Judge Allen Rubine on Tuesday, according to the East Greenwich Patch. “It’s the best offer.”
The Superior Court judge approved the sale only after former partner Bill Pinelli agreed to drop his lawsuit against Steve Marra, accusing him of stealing more than $1 million in their jointly-owned business from 2000 to 2005. Marra agreed to resume payments from his buyout of Pinelli in 2010.
