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Elephant & Castle returns to being Canadian-owned

Elephant & Castle Group , which was founded in Vancouver, has rebounded from bankruptcy protection in the U.S. and is again Canadian-owned.

Elephant & Castle Group, which was founded in Vancouver, has rebounded from bankruptcy protection in the U.S. and is again Canadian-owned.

Calgary-based FranWorks Group of Companies, which owns the 47-outlet Original Joe’s Restaurant and Bar chain, as well as other pubs and restaurants, bought the 19-restaurant Elephant & Castle for $22.75 million from Boston-based Elephant & Castle Group.

The chain of British-style pubs, which opened its first location in Vancouver in 1977, has annual sales exceeding US$50 million.

Elephant &Castle was successful when it launched but, in the past decade, struggled thanks to a series of ill-advised business moves such as launching Alamo Grill-branded steakhouses and being a joint-venture partner in the failed family-themed Rainforest Café restaurants experiment. (See “Elephant and Castle targeted in US$29.6 million acquisition deal” – issue 894; December 12-18, 2006.)

Newfoundland-based Repechage Investments Ltd. closed a deal in April 2007 to acquire all of the shares in Elephant & Castle. A later transaction made the venture Boston-based.

“Elephant &Castle has been in the industry for more than 30 years and has a great reputation among its customers,” FranWorks CEO Derek Doke said Monday.

Glen Korstrom

[email protected]

@GlenKorstrom