River Falls restaurant sold to new owners
WOONSOCKET – River Falls, one of the best-known names in the city’s restaurant business, is about to be sold to two Massachusetts businessmen in a deal worth at least $1.6 million, according to papers on file at City Hall and the parties involved in the pending transaction.
Gary R. Fernandes, who bought and restored the historic mill before establishing the restaurant 14 years ago, said he expects the closing to take place about two weeks after the transfer of the liquor license to the prospective buyers – an action the City Council is expected to take up on Monday.
A construction contractor who special- izes in restoring vintage architecture, Fernandes says he’d been trying to sell River Falls, real estate and all, for about six months. He has already reached a sales agreement with the buyers, but the final contingency is the conveyance of the restaurant’s liquor license to them.
“It’s time for me to get out,” said Fernandes. “It’s time to move on. But let’s focus on the good news. The buyers are very energetic, they’re nice, they’re young. They want to leave it the way it is, and I have a good feeling they’re going to do a good job.”
The buyers are Hevan Patel of Norwood and Kirti Zinjuwadra of Attleboro,
according to their license transfer application. Those documents say a lender identified as Newteck Financial intends to finance the sale with a $1.6 million loan, but that figure may not include a possible down payment that has already been placed on the property.
Reached by phone, Patel declined to elaborate on the financials, but he said he would gladly disclose the price after the transaction is complete.
Patel said he and Zinjuwadra – a longtime friend and business associate – plan on maintaining River Falls exactly as it is. He said Dave Gouin, the manager of the restaurant, is staying on, and there won’t be any changes to the menu.
“Our plan is simple,” said Patel. “Keep it the same.”
River Falls features casual dining with pub-style fare, including burgers, steaks and seafood. The 625-seat, 16,000-square-foot facility also caters private parties and banquet-style events. Patel said he intends to carry on those lines of service and, perhaps, restore the lounge business that Fernandes had
operated in a portion of the site for several years.
He and Zinjuwadra have experience in the restaurant business: On Providence’s premiere nightlife strip – Federal Hill – they run Nara Lounge, an upscale hookah parlor with a full-service cocktail lounge and fine Middle Eastern cuisine. Patel also has interests in several convenience stores in Somerville, New Bedford and Framingham.
Overlooking the Blackstone River in Market Square, just south of Thundermist Falls, River Falls is located in a mid-19th century mill that was the original home of the Woonsocket Rubber Company, which eventually morphed into the U.S. Rubber Company – a national behemoth of the Industrial Era. The site, which last operated as the Falls Yarn textile mill before it was abandoned for manufacturing, was added to the National Register of Historic Places in the late 1980s.
Depending on who’s counting, the three-story, fieldstone and mortar mill was erected between 1856 and 1864 – the historic reg-
ister’s timeline – or in 1846, the date carried on the city’s property records.
In the years before Fernandes acquired the site, the city seriously considered taking possession of it for the development of the Museum of Work & Culture. Ultimately, however, the city concluded that the building was in such a state of disrepair that rehabilitating it was out of the question – it would have been too costly. So the city began looking at alternative locations and eventually settled on another 19th century mill in the same cluster of manufacturing buildings, a few hundred feet away.
In 1997, Fernandes took possession of the building, which the city conveyed to him for the tidy sum of $1.
“It was not a gift, that’s for sure,” said Fernandes. “It took four years just to stabilize the structure. The roof was caving in. The floors were caving in. That’s why I got it for a dollar.”
As anyone who passes through the area from time to time knows, River Falls has been operating at the site for years – 14 of them, ac-
cording to Fernandes – relatively few people know that he had already been living in the mill for about six years before he established the restaurant. He built himself an apartment with a view of the Blackstone River in the rear portion of the structure.
It’s occupied still, says Fernandes, but not by him. Recently, he relocated to North Smithfield.
Fernandes has a lengthy resume in recycling abandoned real estate, but it was his artful resurrection of the tumbledown Falls Yarn site that cemented his reputation as a specialist in pulling challenging and neglected landmarks back from the brink. In the years after completing the project, he went on to acquire many other structures in the city – old schools, apartment houses and commercial buildings – restoring them for a variety of residential and retail uses. Recently he acquired the shuttered Social Street School from the city for $50,000 and intends to convert it into an apartment house.
Atmosphere and reliably good food are among Riv- er Falls’ key draws today – including an outdoor patio where guests can sit just a few feet from the frothy waters of the Blackstone as they cascade over Thundermist Falls, on the other side of South Main Street.
Patel says the restaurant’s one-of-a-kind, industrial feel and its picturesque setting were among the features of the site that made it an attractive investment.
“We love the business and the property,” said Patel. “It’s a unique place, a unique property, a unique business. That’s the reason we want to get into it.”
As for Fernandes, he’s looking forward to focusing on his main line of work, which is construction. While Gouin was the hands-on manager for day-to-day operations, Fernandes says that ultimately, River Falls was his responsibility – one that took up much of his time.
“That’s my specialty, construction, not the restaurant business,” he said. “I’m staying with what I do best.”