Mercato Partners announces $90M Savory Fund I to develop restaurant concepts

Salt Lake City-based capital investment firm Mercato Partners has announced a new fund that will invest primarily in promising new restaurant concepts. Dubbed the Savory Fund, the investment project will have an initial capitalization of $90 million.

“This new fund of $90 million will make investments into compelling, up-and-coming restaurant concepts by providing access to capital together with a team of experienced industry professionals to fuel growth and operations,” Mercato said in a release.

To create this unique investment practice, Mercato Partners founder Greg Warnock partnered with restaurant industry veteran Andrew K. Smith, along with several members of his leadership team. Savory combines the experience of Smith and his team in developing and operating over 175 geographically diverse restaurant locations with the experience of Warnock and the Mercato Partners team in executing institutional investment strategies through various economic cycles and private equity practices, according to the statement.

The Savory operations team of more than 50 industry veterans formerly led restaurant development at Four Foods Group, one of the fastest-growing restaurant operators in the nation. The team’s experience includes expertise in real estate selection and negotiation, development and construction of each restaurant location, project and event management, talent recruiting, leadership training and development, supply chain/procurement, human resources, accounting, strategic financial planning, facilities management and sales and marketing, Warnock said.

“Thousands of restaurant brands have built winning concepts with a promising mix of culture, flavor profile and momentum; however, the creativity and courage needed to launch a new restaurant is much different from the skill set required to scale a restaurant concept to dozens of locations in multiple states,” said Smith, who will be managing director of Savory. “Both capital and expertise are essential to create lasting value in the restaurant industry.”

Savory’s current portfolio includes restaurant concepts Mo’Bettahs, R&R BBQ and Swig.

“The restaurant industry carries an undeserved reputation among certain investors for business risk and razor-thin margins, giving rise to market inefficiency and opportunity. A differentiated brand with several profitable locations and years of consumer loyalty offers a compelling risk-return profile for investors,” said Warnock. “By providing both capital and relevant expertise, we have unlocked tremendous success. Savory’s limited partner investors and portfolio brand founders appreciate the Savory approach to driving incremental growth and value.”

“We created Mo’Bettahs to give guests an authentic Hawaiian experience, which we were able to successfully provide through lots of hard work and deliberate culture curation over the past 10 years,” said Kimo Mack, co-founder of Mo’Bettahs. “Despite that success, we had reached a plateau in our expansion efforts. We were stretched thin and being pulled away from our core strengths. The Savory team helped us to achieve a breakthrough in performance and together we quickly grew our business to heights we simply couldn’t have reached on our own. Our partnership with Savory and its value-add team remains one of our greatest accomplishments.”