Newport Farmers Market to Close, Reopen Next Day With New Name

The Irvine Ranch Farmers Market in Newport Beach’s Fashion Island will close Sunday, but the upscale, gourmet market will reopen Monday as Pacific Ranch Market, with most of the same sections featuring gourmet cheese, a delicatessen, fresh meat and seafood.

“It will be business as usual at Atrium Court,” the newly renovated, high-fashion part of the posh shopping center, predicted Dan Donahue, chairman of Donahue Schriber, which manages Fashion Island.

Pacific Ranch Market, which owns and operates three county grocery stores, has a six-month lease on the 63,000-square-foot Fashion Island site. During that time, “we can determine if (an upscale grocery store) is a viable concept,” Donahue said.

After that period, the shopping center could choose to continue using the space for an upscale food market or it could switch to another concept, Donahue said.

About 70 of the 143 Irvine Ranch employees at the Atrium Court store will be offered positions with the grocery chain at other locations, according to a press release issued by the firms involved. Pacific Ranch Market “will interview remaining employees” for jobs at the new Ranch Market at Atrium Court.

The agreement to bring in Pacific Ranch was hammered out by the Irvine Co., which owns Fashion Island, in connection with Costa Mesa-based Irvine Ranch’s filing for protection from creditors last July.

At the time, Irvine Ranch--which operates 11 Southland stores--listed liabilities of $17.5 million owed to more than 200 creditors.

The Newport Beach store has long been unprofitable for the Irvine Ranch chain, in part because of a lease with base rent reported to be more than $75,000 per month. Representatives of the Irvine Co. declined to discuss the rent.

In September, an investor group headed by the owner of Chalet Gourmet grocery in Los Angeles agreed to invest up to $4 million in the Irvine Ranch chain in exchange for a controlling majority interest and control over operations and management.

Chalet Gourmet’s owner, Daniel Bobroff, has been joined by HLHZ Capital of Los Angeles, a financial restructuring group that is an arm of Houlihan Lokey Howard & Zukin, a national financial advisory group.

At a hearing Monday, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge John E. Ryan agreed that the investor group can receive up to $1.5 million from Tribu Inc., Chalet Gourmet’s parent company, to pay for store rent, refurbishing and restocking.

The judge also agreed that the bankrupt company has 30 days to decide whether it will continue leasing the Irvine Ranch stores in Orange and at the Beverly Center in Los Angeles.

“We’re hopeful we’ll be able to keep all the rest of them,” said Jeffrey Werbalowski, a director with HLHZ Capital.

In a prepared statement, Bobroff said that he and HLHZ decided to dispose of the Fashion Island store because “the scope of the . . . operation simply did not fit our long-range objectives for Irvine Ranch.”

Pacific Ranch Market owns and operates Hershey’s Market on Balboa Island, as well as Pacific Ranch Markets in Laguna Niguel and Corona del Mar.

Under the new arrangement, Pacific Ranch will continue to offer high-quality produce, gourmet groceries and a wine and beer department. It will independently operate the meat and seafood sections, salad bar, deli bar, gourmet cheese section and soup and sandwich stand.