Is Hacienda for sale? No, just three of the restaurant chains' buildings

SOUTH BEND ― For sale signs in front of two Hacienda restaurant locations as well as at company headquarters doesn’t mean the business is struggling.

It’s just that Ken Zmudzinski, one of the founders of the business, is interested in selling three properties that have been leased by the local restaurant chain for many years.

Those properties include: headquarters at 1501 N. Ironwood Drive with an asking price of $830,000; the 100 Center restaurant at 700 Lincoln Way W, Mishawaka, with an asking price of about $1.59 million; and the restaurant and office building at 2148 & 2146 Karwick Drive, Long Beach, with an asking price of about $3.82 million .

The properties were listed earlier this month by Shawn Todd, senior broker at Cressy Commercial. The restaurant locations all have about nine years of lease remaining with Hacienda, and the office spot in South Bend has about four years remaining.

“I just wanted to reduce the number of properties that I have,” Zmudzinski said, adding that he certainly didn’t want to cause any confusion regarding the restaurant business he helped start 46 years ago.

And yes, there have been calls to both Hacienda and Cressy Commercial wondering if the business was for sale.

“It was a difficult decision to list the properties,” Zmudzinski said, adding that he only sold his stock back to the company three years ago. “Back when we started, there weren’t a lot of Mexican-American restaurants in the area. So, we rolled the dice, and it worked out.”

Cody Jackson, senior marketing director for Hacienda, said it isn’t uncommon for restaurants to lease rather than own. In fact, the Hacienda in Warsaw is the only location that’s owned by the 14-restaurant chain.

“After the listing appeared a couple of weeks ago, I had people reaching out to me,” Jackson said. “It’s good to nip any rumors in the bud.”

Besides the sale of three Hacienda buildings by Zmudzinski, Monday also marked the celebration of the life of Bill Shannon , another founder of the restaurant chain, who went on to teach at Saint Mary’s College for 28 years and was active in several local and state organizations. Shannon died June 13.

Email Tribune staff writer Ed Semmler at esemmler@sbtinfo.com .

This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: Is Hacienda for sale? No, just three of the restaurant chains' buildings