Turnaround artist takes chance on Jocks & Jills

A Decatur location might work good. ???



By CHRIS MEGERIAN
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 06/27/08

Photo: Frank Niemeir/AJC

Phil Hickey and Jeff Trent had nothing on their minds besides the basketball game on TV when Craig Sager approached them at the Jocks & Jills restaurant in the Galleria mall three months ago.

Sager, a longtime Turner Broadcasting sportscaster and co-founder of the chain of sports bars, wanted the career restaurant executives to buy and operate the troubled company.
Hickey wasn't interested. Jocks & Jills had gone bankrupt a year before in the midst of a protracted sexual harassment suit. And he was enjoying working part time as a consultant after selling the Atlanta-based restaurant company Rare Hospitality for $1.19 billion last fall.

But Trent offered to do the brunt of the work as chief operator, and Hickey became convinced that the restaurant's brand had potential.

So nine days after having no interest in owning Jocks & Jills, Hickey purchased the company.

It was an unlikely career move for a man who has been called one of the best CEOs in the business. Eight months after he left a job running a company with 330 restaurants and 20,000 employees, he has become the co-owner of a company with four restaurants, 160 employees and allegations of mismanagement at the highest level.

Now Hickey and Trent must restore profitability to the company in a time of $4 gas, consumer insecurity and high food prices.

"If anybody can do it, it would be Phil Hickey," said Mark Newton, program director of the hotel, restaurant, tourism management program at Gwinnett Tech.

Rise and fall

Jocks & Jills was founded in 1987 by Sager and two Atlanta Hawks players. The company enjoyed early success and eventually there were 10 restaurants and a catering company.

The company's downward slide started with a sexual harassment lawsuit filed in 2000 by one of its managers. The manager, Tracey Tomczyk, lost initially, but on appeal she won a $2.25 million award.

In the 2006 ruling, Jocks & Jills was ordered to pay $1.25 million, and the company filed for bankruptcy protection on March 19, 2007.

Former company chairman Joseph Rollins, who was ordered to pay $1 million to Tomczyk, has appealed, and a third trial is pending.

The sexual harassment suit was not the only factor driving the company toward Chapter 11. A document filed on April 28, 2008, alleged that Rollins' actions — including profane interactions with important landlords and payment of more than $1.8 million in unauthorized "management fees" — had imperiled Jocks & Jills. Rollins' attorney, Denise Dotson with Atlanta firm Jones & Walden, declined comment.

The company closed some of its most visible and profitable locations at the CNN Center, in the Brookhaven neighborhood and its original restaurant on 10th Street in Midtown. Two company-owned restaurants, at the Galleria Mall and in Charlotte, N.C.; a franchise in Canton; and a licensed location in Macon continue to operate.

The company had been so devalued, Hickey was able to purchase its assets from bankruptcy court on April 2 for $373,500. (Sager, who is still a co-owner of the company, put up another $41,500.)