Owners of this 19-year-old west-side restaurant are ready to move on, want to sell
He’s tried just about everything he can think of to make his restaurant work.
Now, said David Hensley — who bought Avivo Brick Oven Pizzeria in NewMarket Square three years ago — he’s out of ideas and has decided that he’s putting the restaurant up for sale.
His lease is up on Aug. 31, he said, and if he doesn’t find a buyer, he’ll close it then — if not sooner.
“Our family has definitely been trying our hardest for the last three years, and we’ve all agreed that the restaurant life is hard and that we definitely would like to just move on from this season and get into some other things that are maybe a little less trying and a little more rewarding,” Hensley said.
Avivo first opened in NewMarket Square in late 2005 serving brick-oven pizzas. Its founder was Gambino’s franchisee Tony Suellentrop, who originally planned to turn it into a franchise. But in 2014, he sold it to local developer and lawyer Abdul Arif.
Arif had the restaurant for seven years, but in 2021 Hensley bought it. He’d just sold his interest in his local uBreakiFix stores and decided to partner in Avivo with his daughter and son-in-law, Adrian and Andres Garcia.
Since then, Hensley said, he and Andres have been devoting nearly all of their time to the restaurant. In September, they briefly closed and remodeled Avivo, changing it from a sit-down, full-service restaurant into a quick-service model, where people ordered their pizzas at the counter and picked them up when they were ready. They also got rid of the bar and switched to canned and bottled beers and cocktails.
They were hoping the change would help them cut costs, turn over customers faster and make the business — which had light lunch crowds and customers who lingered over dinner — more sustainable.
But that didn’t work, Hensley said.
“We ran it for about a month, and our sales tanked even further than they were before the remodel,” he said. “We laid off all of our staff and had to run the entire thing ourselves.”
Then, in January, Hensley recorded a video that he posted on social media, imploring customers to support his local business.
That worked, but only for a short time.
“Everybody comes out and supports and helps, but it’s a flash in the pan, and it just dies off again,” he said. “We’re frankly kind of burnt out.”
Hensley said he does hope to sell the restaurant — including the Avivo name and all of its intellectual property. Anyone interested would need to renegotiate the lease with NewMarket Square.
If he doesn’t find a buyer, he’ll have to close, he said. Though the restaurant won’t shut down right away, he said, he can’t promise it will last through the summer.
Hensley wants to spend more time with his two young grandsons, he said, and his son-in-law wants to spend more time with his sons. Hensley also wants to focus his energy on pursuing his passion: a career in voice acting.
“We’ve personally invested a lot into this — our time, our money,” he said. “We love Avivo, and we don’t want to see Avivo close. We would love it if someone would come along and continue the legacy and the hard work and the time and energy we’ve invested. We put a lot of love into Avivo, and we’d like to see somebody pick that ball up and run with it.”
Anyone interested in Avivo, Hensley said, should reach out to his broker, Todd Bailey of Transworld Business Advisors, at 316-214-6875.
For now, Avivo will continue to operate from 5 to 9 p.m. Wednesdays through Fridays and from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays.
This story was originally published March 19, 2024 at 5:02 AM.
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