Hangover Pub, Broth on track to re-open
Photo/Grant Welker
The Hangover Pub and sister restaurant Broth are cleared to re-open after a prior owner's legal issues forced both to close last month.
Worcester's popular Hangover Pub and sister restaurant Broth are a step closer toward reopening after they won approval for a new operating license from the License Commission Thursday.
The adjoining restaurants in the city's Canal District were closed last month after one of its owners was caught in legal trouble.
The new owner and manager, Michael Arrastia, told the License Commission, "I'd love to open immediately." The three-member commission unanimously approved him as the manager of record for the eateries' operating licenses.
Two business partners who formerly ran Hanover Pub and Broth will not be involved, either as owners or managers, Arrastia's attorney, Henry Simonelli, told the commission.
Arrastia was the Hangover Pub chef but said he will move out of the kitchen to help oversee operations.
Hangover Pub and Broth closed in late March the day after Christopher Slavinskas, an owner, pleaded guilty to concealing money from federal investigators. He is alleged to have concealed $330,000 in drug money from investigators looking into the finances of another Worcester restaurateur, Kevin Perry.
Slavinskas has been scheduled for sentencing on June 29. He faces up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
Perry, who ran The Usual and Blackstone Tap restaurants, faces 14 charges in federal court of money laundering and other drug charges. He pleaded guilty last October and agreed to a sentence of 14 to 16 years in prison. Both of his former restaurants have closed, as has Chameleon, a restaurant that opened in place of The Usual.
Slavinskas told investigators he helped Perry's wife, Stacey Gala, conceal $200,000 in a storage locker and then returned the money to her. Investigators alleged that he actually hid about $330,000, spending $130,000 on himself and returning $200,000 to Gala.
For Hangover Pub and Broth, Thursday's vote is an apparent start of a new chapter.
"He wants to conduct the business along the same vein that it had been conducted," Simonelli said of Arrastia, who the attorney said has been in the restaurant business for 16 years and has become an accomplished chef.
Arrastia bought the assets of the restaurants through a newly formed corporation, Simonelli said.
License Commission members asked about any involvement from Slavinskas or business partner Jay Grey, and Simonelli said neither will be involved. Commission Chairman Anthony Salvidio stressed that the restaurants would be watched closely for compliance.
"If I find or hear anything of the prior ownership involved in this restaurant," Salvidio said, "I will have you back in here before you can even get the paperwork."
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