After months of tumult between bar owners and its landlord, popular Halsted gay bar Cocktail is changing hands.
John "Geno" Zaharakis, who has owned Cocktail since it opened 16 years ago, handed over most of the company to an undisclosed longtime friend this week, he confirmed. The new management will take over the bar on Sept. 1.
Zaharakis will remain part owner while he looks for spaces for a new bar and builds the Cocktail franchise, he said.
The sale comes less than a month after Cocktail slapped its landlord, management company and two former employees with a lawsuit over an alleged conspiracy to destroy Cocktail's good name and oust the bar.
"I'm stepping back to focus on the lawsuit and take some time," Zaharakis said. "They've made me feel really unwelcome and that's not fair."
The suit alleges that Robert Brumbaugh conspired with David Sikora, the bar's former manager and Alexander Stoykov, another former Cocktail employee and current employee of Key Management and Realty Inc. to put Cocktail out of business. Brumbaugh purchased the building that houses Cocktail at Halsted and Roscoe in June.
Since, Zaharakis has said that the three went to extreme measures to ruin Cocktail. According to the complaint, Sikora allegedly vandalized the property by urinating and spitting on Cocktail while Brumbaugh and Stoykov allegedly threatened Zaharakis and tried to destroy his business relationships.
Brumbaugh declined to comment on the allegations or the pending sale.
On Aug. 26, Zaharakis sat his staff down and broke the news.
The new owner, who Zaharakis said he has worked with closely for years, will retain all current employees.
Zaharakis is expected to announce the new management next week. But before a new owner can take over the property, Zaharakis has to work out the details with his landlord. That, he said, might pose a challenge.
Photo by Tracy Baim
