Daniel Maestri is still confident that he will reopen Mary Maestri’s Italian Grillroom, his family’s iconic northwest Arkansas restaurant.
Mary Maestri’s closed at the end of February when its lease ran out at the restaurant’s location on East Robinson Avenue in Springdale.
Maestri was close to a deal with an investor to reopen the restaurant in May at a former Ta Molly’s on South 48th Street in Springdale, but the deal fell through.
Maestri, 61, is the grandson of Aldo and Mary Maestri, who founded the restaurant in her kitchen in 1923.
Daniel Maestri assumed control of the restaurant after his father’s death in 1977.
Maestri ran into debt problems after rebuilding the restaurant at its original location in Tontitown, and the state closed it because of unpaid sales taxes in 2010.
Maestri reopened the restaurant a few months later in Fayetteville and, after closing that location, reopened on East Robinson in August 2012.
“It has only been nine to 10 months,” Maestri said. “The other one was closed seven months before we opened in Fayetteville. Then we were closed nine months in between.
“To me, it’s not a big deal. There is a time for everything. While we have not been doing anything, there have probably been half a dozen restaurants go out of business.”
On his Facebook page in late October, Daniel Maestri posted that he had been in the hospital with a heart problem. He didn’t want to talk about his health scare — “I feel much better now,” Maestri said — but said it has kept him from working as actively as he might on reopening Mary Maestri’s.
Maestri did say he is in contact with one possible investor.
“I can’t talk about the details,” Maestri said. “I really need to talk to one person at a time. It’s not like selling a used car.”
Maestri did say that his health issues would probably prevent him from actively running the restaurant when it reopens.