Deal to reopen Brookville Hotel falls through when buyer, seller can’t agree on contract
Never mind about the Brookville Hotel coming back.
The deal to reopen this historic Abilene hotel as a steakhouse, which was announced earlier this month, appears to be off.
On Tuesday morning, original owners Mark and Connie Martin said in a Facebook post that they were unable to finalize a contract “at this time” with buyers Chuck and Deanna Munson, owners of Munson Angus Farms in Junction City.
The couple, whose Munson’s Prime Steakhouse in Junction City was destroyed in a February fire, had planned to reopen the Brookville Hotel and call it Legacy Kansas. The Martins were on board to help out.
“We want to thank all of our faithful and loyal patrons that have supported us over the many years and were excited we were coming back.!” the post by the Martins read.
The restaurant had been scheduled to reopen on June 23.
Later on Tuesday, the Munsons also issued a statement giving their take.
“We believe that we had an agreement in principle to purchase the Brookville Hotel assets and made every effort to expedite the opening of Legacy Kansas to accommodate summer travel demands,” they said in the statement. “It is now apparent that we will be unable to arrive at a mutually agreeable contract with the Martins. This will unfortunately prevent us from opening on June 23rd as planned.
The statement went on to say the the couple was committed to seeing the project completed and that they hoped “better news will be announced at a later time. “
They instructed people to watch for future announcements at MunsonsPrimeSteakhouse on Facebook.
The Martins closed the legendary hotel in the fall when traffic dropped off because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Munsons said in May that they planned to give the restaurant an updated facade and serve the fried chicken made famous at the hotel, whose history stretches back to 1870. They also planned to add chicken fried steak, burgers and homemade ice cream.
The Brookville Hotel had been in Mark Martin’s family for four generations.
This story was originally published May 25, 2021 at 11:45 AM.
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