Friday, February 27, 2009

New owners for Nama

So Gregg White appears to be out of the Knoxville restaurant business for the time being. I'd heard some rumblings about him selling Nama, and the News Sentinel says today that's the case.

The new owners plan to turn Nama into at least a regional brand and franchise it. Before the rumors that Gregg was going to sell Nama started floating, there was talk that he wanted to do something similar. Gregg is going to stick around in a consulting capacity while he pursues some sort of green business concept.

The new chief manager is Gale Huneycutt, whose group is in charge of all the local Puleo's Grilles.

According to Carly Harrington, he'll make a few changes like opening for lunch on Sundays and adding some non-sushi options to the Bearden menu.

I'm sure Gregg will still be around, it just seems strange that he won't actually own any of the places after being a fixture of Knoxville's downtown restaurant scene for so long. It's my understanding that business had taken a bit of a hit in recent months, so I would guess that had something to do with it.

Does anyone have any more details?

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'd guess he's in love and wants to travel, but that's not the practical guess.

~Beka said...

Oh no! Does this mean he out of ALL his knoxville ventures like La Costa? Did Huneycutt take control of that too?!? This doesn't sound good.

The Modern Gal said...

Rebecca, Gregg sold La Costa a few months ago with the intention of focusing on Nama. It wasn't to Huneycutt though. I don't know the new owners, but I know one of my fellow Wigshoppers does ...