Bavarian Chef could take former Claiborne’s spot

Fredericksburg City Council members will have their third downtown incentives deal before them Tuesday–a $90,000 deal to get the Bavarian Chef, a popular German restaurant that now operates in Madison County, to open a second location in Fredericksburg.

The old train station at the end of Caroline Street has been vacant since Claiborne’s abruptly closed in September. According to the documents attached to Tuesday’s meeting agenda, the Bavarian Chef applied for an incentives deal on March 1.

Council members discussed the deal in closed session at their March 9 meeting (They can do that as long as the business name hasn’t been announced.), and they’ll be asked to vote on the agreement on Tuesday.

Bavarian Chef owners Jerome and Christine Thalwitz intend to open in late April or early May. Their performance agreement requires them to open for business by June 1. They have signed a 10-year lease with Tommy Mitchell, who owns the train station.

The 10-year incentives deal the council will consider consists of:

• a 100 percent waiver of BPOL taxes – worth up to $4,000 a year.
• a 10 percent rebate of sales and meals taxes – worth up to $14,000 a year.

The maximum annual incentive paid out, between the BPOL and sales and meals rebates, cannot exceed $18,000. Over the course of 10 years, the business can collect a maximum of $90,000 in tax-based incentives.

Bavarian Chef is projecting that it will generate $1.8 million in annual sales. That would bring the city $127,800 a year in local tax revenue, before incentives are paid out.

Bavarian Chef would be the third downtown business to receive tax-based incentives from the City Council (many others have received one-time EDA grants to help projects along). Capital Ale House and Kybecca are both in the process of reporting to receive their first year of incentive payouts, something we’ll be reporting on shortly.

Pick up tomorrow’s Free Lance-Star for more on this story.

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