GOLDEN NUGGET UPDATE: The ‘For Sale’ sign is up, and the asking price is $1.5 million

Restaurant never reopened after statewide shutdown; owners have said they want to reopen in a smaller location

It’s been more than two years since the owners of the popular Golden Nugget pancake house in Kettering quietly put the property and building that houses their restaurant on the market, but no “for sale” sign ever appeared on the property at South Dixie Drive and West Dorothy Lane in Kettering.

That has changed. On Friday, the “for sale” sign was installed, the asking price is $1.5 million, and the Golden Nugget may have served its last stack of pancakes and perfectly cooked bacon at that location at 2932 S. Dixie Drive, although the restaurant’s owners say they want to reopen a smaller Golden Nugget elsewhere at some point in the future.

The listing price has dropped by nearly half from the original asking price of $2.9 million when the property was first listed in August 2018.

The listing agent for the property, David Nianouris of HER Realtors, said he has seen some interest in the 1.9-acre property and 7,238-square-foot building during the time it was quietly for sale, but that interest didn’t culminate in a purchase. The property is now being marketed to buyers who may not have a successor restaurant in mind for the tract.

“We are pursuing other uses for the site,” Nianouris said. His real-estate listing suggests the property could be used for a medical facility, convenience store/gas station, car wash or trade school.

Credit: MARK FISHER/STAFF

Credit: MARK FISHER/STAFF

The $1.5 million asking price is for the real estate and building only, and does not include the restaurant equipment or the Golden Nugget name, business or recipes.

The Golden Nugget has been closed since the coronavirus-related statewide mandatory shutdown of dine-in service in March.

Messages left by this news outlet with co-owner Stacey Frangomichalos were not returned Monday, but Frangomichalos has told WHIO-TV that, “We are fearful to open. We are fearful of opening and somebody getting COVID, and then we’re going to be right back to where we were, and we’re going to be closed for two weeks.”

The current Golden Nugget was built in 2007 after a fire caused by an electrical problem heavily damaged the existing building that had been constructed in the early 1960s.

Original owner Steve Thomas and his wife, Bessie, founded the Golden Nugget’s Kettering location in 1962.

Steve Thomas died in 1996, and his daughters have operated the Golden Nugget since then.

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