Worcester Business Journal

How the former owners of the Bull Mansion bought it for $487K, sold it for $1.2M, and made no money BY BRAD KANE Worcester Business Journal Editor 6 Worcester Business Journal | March 16, 2020 | wbjournal.com PHOTO/BRAD KANE F or her next venture, entrepreneur Victoria Mariano does not want to run a restaurant, or be an operator in any way. Mariano, 33, and her business partner Adi Tibrewal, are looking for investments requiring few day-to-day responsibilities, like parking lots or land for solar farms. e duo seemingly already made out on their last investment, having bought the historic Bull Mansion on Pearl Street in downtown Worcester for $487,500 in 2016 and selling it for $1.16 million to a Rhode Island investor in January. Yet, aer paying all their back taxes and bills and calculating the cost and time spent running a restaurant and events space in the 144-year-old Bull Mansion for nearly three years, Tibrewal and Mariano simply broke even. Now, they are looking for new opportunities requiring a significantly less hands-on role. "e first couple of years are going to be no-risk investment," Mariano said. Operating in the red Simply buying the Bull Mansion was a tricky venture. Mariano, who lives in Spencer, and Tibrewal, 41, who lives in Worcester, met as students at Clark University in Worcester when Tibrewal was studying for his master's degree. ey hadn't worked together before, but when Mariano was looking for properties and found the Bull Mansion, she thought of him. Tibrewal was the assistant vice president of Blue Hills Bank in Boston at the time, while Mariano previously founded the Electric Haze and Spiritual Haze hookah lounges in Worcester. Mariano thought Tibrewal's financial expertise and community-building skills would complement her skills in setting up consumer-facing businesses. "She brings this amazing creative thinking behind most things, while I bring in more of a corporate mindset," Tibrewal said. Because the last business operating out of the Bull Mansion was a restaurant closed in 2010, Tibrewal and Mariano had a difficult time lining up a loan to buy the property. Tibrewal worked his connections in the banking industry, and eventually Lowell Five Cents Savings Bank provided the original mortgage for the duo to purchase the Bull Mansion for $487,500 in March 2016, far below its asking price of $850,000. "I had people who had to give their personal guarantees in order to get the loan through," Tibrewal said. e duo had a bold vision: an events space, live music and a farm-to-table restaurant. ey invested $150,000 of their own equity to renovate the property. e restaurant and events space opened in September 2016, hosting a party for the POW! WOW! Worcester graffiti art festival. In the first year, the restaurant and events space generated more than $1 million in revenue, but the business still ran at a loss. e commitment to buying food from local farms was costly, and the amount of food waste contributed significantly to the financial losses. "All the cost we incurred was normal for the first year, when you are still figuring everything out," Mariano said. In the second year, the restaurant scaled back from being open every day to closing on Mondays and Tuesdays, with no lunch service. Eventually, operating hours of the restaurant were scaled back to just the weekends. e business generated $700,000 in revenue for the second year, and it still ran in the red. Victoria Mariano and Adi Tibrewal, at Mariano's hookah lounge Electric Haze in the Canal District, on the day their sale of the Bull Mansion closed " Wo r c e s t e r i s a t t r a c t i n g o u t s i d e i n v e s t o r s f r o m a l l o v e r, w h o a r e w i l l i n g t o p a y m o r e , " M a r i a n o s a i d . " I n v e s t o r s f r o m Wo r c e s t e r a r e s o c h e a p . N o o n e t h o u g h t w e w o u l d g e t w h a t w e s o l d i t f o r. "

• Cover