A Calvert County restaurant with views of the Chesapeake Bay sold at auction this week for $2.2 million — more than double the starting bid.
Online bidding for Mamma Lucia, an Italian restaurant at 8323 Bayside Road in Chesapeake Beach, opened at $1 million. The auction closed Tuesday at noon.
Alex Cooper Auctioneers handled the sale. Paul Cooper, a vice president at the auction house, said the listing saw "a lot of action."
"We had a lot of interest with back-up bidders," he said.
Cooper declined to name the buyer, but said they are already in the restaurant industry, an indication that "people in the business are looking to expand."
Mamma Lucia, an Italian restaurant in Chesapeake Beach, sold at auction for $2.1 million.
The auction was scheduled as part of bankruptcy proceedings for the restaurant. Entities associated with Mamma Lucia filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in October 2019, according to documents filed with the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Maryland. Cooper said the court must approve the sale before it closes.
Though the Chesapeake Beach Mamma Lucia restaurant shares a name with the Mamma Lucia chain of Italian eateries, which has locations in College Park, Bethesda and elsewhere in Maryland, Cooper said the restaurant is not a franchise.
According to the restaurant's website, owners Sal and Maria Lubrano opened their first Mamma Lucia Italian Restaurant in Dunkirk in 1997. They built the Chesapeake Beach location in 2017, the auction listing says.
The sale includes the restaurant's Bayside real estate as well as furniture, fixtures and equipment. The 6,700-square-foot building has seating for as many as 341 diners, with two main dining rooms, a bar area and an outdoor bar with seating on a rear deck and rooftop.
The restaurant's name and phone number were not part of the sale.
According to the listing, Mamma Lucia's gross sales totaled approximately $1.4 million in 2018 and 2019, and $1.13 million in 2020. In the first four months of 2021, the restaurant's gross sales were $428,000.