UPDATED, Feb. 6, 10:38 a.m.: A company tied to Craig Menin’s Menin Development bought another property along Atlantic Avenue in Delray Beach.
301 East Atlantic LLC, led by Nicholas G. Nicholas, sold the 2,955-square-foot building at 301 East Atlantic Avenue to Rosebud JB LLC, according to property records. The building, home to the popular Johnnie Brown’s restaurant, sold for $7.3 million. It was built in 1939.
The building last sold for $1 million in 2009.
In addition to owning and running Johnnie Brown’s, the Nicholas family of Pittsburgh owns Nicholas Coffee & Tea Co. in Pittsburgh, and has other real estate holdings. They sold their majority stake in Primanti Bros., a sandwich shop chain, in 2012, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
Menin said he doesn’t have plans for the building, and he’s a longtime customer of Johnnie Brown’s, “which we believe is a Delray institution.” The restaurant will remain, he said.
Menin Development is based in Delray Beach and has properties throughout South Florida, Phoenix and New Orleans. In late 2018, the company paid $5.5 million for the building at 307 East Atlantic Avenue, a former Luigi’s Coal Oven Pizza.
Last year, Menin closed on a nearly $30 million construction loan for Delray City Market, a 120,000-square-foot mixed-use project with a 30,000-square-foot food hall, just south of Atlantic Avenue at 33 Southeast Third Avenue.
Investors are increasingly choosing to build in Delray Beach.
In October, National Realty Investment Advisors and U.S. Construction closed on a $73 million loan from CIM Group to begin construction on Ocean Delray, a 19-unit boutique condo development that marks the first oceanfront condo project in Delray Beach in 30 years.