private industry restaurants founded minnetonka minnesota 1999 founder dean vlahos headquarters wayzata minnesota u.s. slogan spirited rugged and romantic . website redstonegrill.com redstone american grill is a restaurant chain with locations in several the u.s. states . 1 the company is positioned between upscale restaurants and more casual chains such as t.g.i. fridays . 2 the company was founded by dean vlahos in 1999 and the first location opened six months later in minnetonka minnesota in september 1999 . 3 there are currently six locations . contents 1 history 2 menu 3 tom petters 4 references 5 external links history edit dean vlahos founder of the champps restaurant & bar chain founded redstone american grill in 1999 in the city of wayzata minnesota . the initial restaurant which opened several months later in september 1999 in minnetonka minnesota generated strong sales . 2 by 2008 the chain had grown to five locations in four states with a sixth in the planning stages . revenues exceed those of most competitors . single store sales averaged us 6.7 million annually in 2004 and chain wide sales exceed 30 million annually . 2 the target customer includes upscale professionals in upper middle class affluent sub urban areas . the restaurants are modeled after other upscale chains houstons and bandera grill and feature open spaces around a central bar and an open kitchen with a wood burning grill and rotisserie . menu edit the company markets itself as a high end barbecue restaurant that features steak chicken pork and fish cooked on a wood fired grill . zagat survey reviews of the fare are mostly positive with one commenter stating it had an interesting menu including very expensive steaks to reasonably priced chicken and ribs ... restaurant review magazine gave the chain high marks in quality and taste for its entrees and appetizers . tom petters edit tom petters the ceo of petters group worldwide and a friend of valhos was a minority stake holder with 16 % of the company . he was arrested in late 2007 by federal officials on charges he was running a us 3 billion ponzi scheme . while not affecting the company s operations petters scheme severely affected the personal fortune of valhos and hurt redstone s standing in the financial community and complicated a company reorganization occurring at the same time . company ceo david goronkin issued a statement about the issue in which he denied that reorganization was caused by the charges ; it does not involve redstone whatsoever he said . redstone is reorganizing because of the dry up of the credit market . it has nothing to do with petters . i will continue to build redstones and i ll continue to do other projects . we ll move forward . 4 5 however the damage to the company s reputation accompanied by the 2008 2009 recession has put dampeners on redstone s expansion plans . ge capital a major source of funding for a planned 200 300 unit expansion pulled a promised 10 million loan while gronkin resigned from his position as ceo . in all the company s sales declined 2.2 % in 2008 primarily due to recessionary pressures on its prime clientele base of the sub urban professional . analysts are however positive on the loss noting that comparable chains such as morton s restaurant group and mccormick & schmick s have seen losses in the 10 15 % range . 5 references edit redstone american grill secures 26.5 million in growth funding . a b c berger liza 2005 . redstone american grill secures 26.5 million in growth funding . nation s restaurant news . walkup carolyn 2004 . champps founder vlahos expands redstone grill concept . nation s restaurant news . vomhof john 13 october 2008 . dean vlahos redstone american grill not linked to petters debt . minneapolis st. paul business journal . a b 1 dead link external links edit official website retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title redstone american grill & oldid 655088712 categories companies based in minnesotarestaurants established in 1999restaurant chains in the united stateshidden categories pages using duplicate arguments in template callsall articles with dead external linksarticles with dead external links from april 2011use dmy dates from april 2011 navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction helpabout wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact page tools what links hererelated changesupload filespecial pagespermanent linkpage informationwikidata itemcite this page print export create a bookdownload as pdfprintable version languages add links this page was last modified on 5 april 2015 at 20 31 . text is available under the creative commons attribution sharealike license ; 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