TUCSON, Ariz. — Jack's Original Barbecue, one of Tucson's longer-running businesses, could close soon if the owners don't find a buyer.
Greg Boccardo, who has owned Jack's with his brother Steve and father Larry for 15 years, said the family hopes to identify a buyer for the 62-year-old restaurant in the next couple of months. If there is none, the family will close Jack's by early summer, he said.
The business has been on the market for four months.
"We'd like to sell it instead of shutting it down, but without somebody there running it it's pretty hard," Greg Boccardo said Monday.
The family is asking $425,000 for the building, which will include the restaurant and all its equipment. The restaurant alone is between $100,000 and $150,000, he said.
Boccardo said his family bought Jack's with the idea that his brother would run it. And Steve Boccardo did run it for 14 of the past 15 years. He left the daily operation a year ago and brought in a full-time manager. The family is still involved; Steve Boccardo continues to mix all the dry rubs that have been a signature of the restaurant since Jack Banks opened it in 1950, and Greg and Larry help out as well.
Banks, who died in 1998, ran Jack's until he retired in 1992. The Boccardos bought the restaurant from the second owner, who had it about three years, Steve Boccardo said.
Greg Boccardo said the business is doing well, but it needs a hands-on owner to really succeed.
"One family can come in and make a very nice living here," he said. "But for a person to go start a business by themselves is too hard. . It's getting harder and harder for small businesses to stay in business. Taxes are going up; regulations are going up. To try to do all the red tape and regulations and everything you need to run a restaurant, and then to actually run the restaurant, you really need two people."
Steve Boccardo said the business also never fully recovered from the loss of its booming pre-recession catering. When the economy tanked several years ago, catering dropped off by 80 percent, he said.
"People weren't having company picnics any more. Businesses weren't having their open houses for their customers," he said.
The Boccardos said their decision to sell has nothing to do with competition from BrushFire BBQ, which opened a restaurant about two miles away on East 22nd Street last fall. Greg Boccardo said Jack's' style of barbecue, based on the more spicy Texas and Kansas City styles, is vastly different than BrushFire or other competitors who have come and gone over the years, including the national chain of El Paso Bar-B-Que.
"(New competition) may hurt for like six weeks, but the people that like Jack's like Jack's for a reason," Steve Boccardo said.
He said he hopes someone buys the restaurant and continues Banks' legacy. The thought of closing down a Tucson institution weighs heavy on his mind.
"It makes us all sad," Steve Boccardo said. "My kids grew up in the place. We worked it for 15 years. I was just engaged shortly after getting Jack's. That's been a big part of my life and my kids' lives. It's something that I truly enjoyed doing."
The sale is being handled by Keith McLeod of the Business Centre, who was involved in both the 1993 sale and the sale to the Boccardos a few years later.
Information from: Arizona Daily Star, http://www.azstarnet.com