The story behind the demise of the Pesky Pelican

In a manner of speaking, the Pesky Pelican Brew Pub was a victim of Covid-19.

Dan Pemberton, who shuttered the popular west St. Petersburg watering hole Dec. 31 after seven years in business, blames the Small Business Administration (SBA) and its Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) program for the Azalea restaurant’s descent into financial hell.

Instigated during the pandemic, EIDLs were intended to help small business owners recover from the hardships endured while Covid was raging, under what the SBA called “borrower-friendly” terms, i.e. deferred interest.

Pemberton, 62, is in debt to the tune of $540,000, including interest, because the SBA wants its money back. “The SBA is a predatory lending racket,” Pemberton believes. The business has filed for bankruptcy under Chapter 11.

“They gave me $125,000,” he reflected, sitting on the restaurant’s back patio during a break in an afternoon deep-clean. “Then they gave me another $375,000. So now we’re a half a million, at three percent – they said ‘ah, don’t worry about it for 24 months,’ or 20 months or whatever it was. OK.”

Pemberton, who had already been turned down (pre-Covid) for a $60,000 SBA loan – he’d wanted to build a tiki bar and small stage behind the Pesky Pelican, but was told he was not a good risk – saw the EIDL offer as an opportunity.

He bought a second business, a banquet, wedding and party venue and supplier on St. Pete Beach. “Right at that time, the governor opened Florida back up to parties again, so business was booming,” he said. “We were making all kinds of money. And that company was able to start paying the loan when it started coming due.” The monthly payment was $2,800.

Inevitably, business for Florida Beach Banquets fell off. “I was trying to run two businesses, which was about to kill me. So I put the business up for sale.”

For seven months, a prospective buyer dangled money in front of him. He was, the man said, purchasing several of the units in the beach shopping plaza, at 5501 Gulf Boulevard.

As terms were being worked out, Pemberton stopped booking weddings and other events into the future, because, he believed, there would soon be no more Florida Beach Banquets.

“Well, the guy pulled out of the deal,” Pemberton explained. And the Pesky Pelican “never made close to that kind of money, to be paying for that. So we got behind.”

For EIDL loans in excess of $200,000, the SBA requires that they be personally guaranteed. The loan had been co-signed by Pemberton and his daughter Danielle, who’d formed the corporate entity Dos Dans, LLC together to open the Pesky Pelican in 2016. She had since moved on to other endeavors, and was not involved with Florida Beach Banquets.

“I made a mistake when I put Florida Beach Banquets under Dos Dans,” said Pemberton. “ I didn’t want to be dealing with two corporations. So that went belly up, and Dos Dans is still responsible for that SBA loan.”

With nine months’ rent in arrears, Florida Beach Banquets was asked to leave the 5501 center. (Ironically, the new tenant is the French bakery and coffee room Café Soleil, which – its proprietor contended – had been forced out of the Dolphin Village Shopping Center in another landlord/tenant dispute.)

“So I’m filing bankruptcy on the business, but they also came at me personally,” Pemberton said. “So I have to file personal bankruptcy.”

Because her name was on the Dos Dans forms, his daughter is also responsible for the loans. She is filing personal bankruptcy, too.

In the midst of this, Pemberton’s 34-year-old son died in his sleep from a brain aneurism. Although Jake Pemberton suffered from ALS (a.k.a. Lou Gehrig’s disease), the aneurism was unrelated, and unanticipated.

It’s been a rough month for the family.

To keep his mind off the hard stuff, Pemberton said, “We’re cleaning this place, top to bottom. It has nothing to do with the SBA – this is for my landlord. I paid the rent for another month.

“Technically, they own all the stuff that’s in here. They’re coming to repo the stuff, to sell it at auction, but I have no idea when they’re coming. We’re just stacking it up nice and neat.”

He has also paid January’s rent for next door’s Love Thy Neighbor Community Market – something he’s been doing every month for a year and a half.

There’s idle chatter among friends and family about buying back the equipment and one day returning the restaurant to its former glory. Wishful thinking.

Pemberton doesn’t put a lot of stock in that kind of talk. “Seven days a week, and I’m not making a dime. So what’s the point?”

He might return to the hospitality business in time. Perhaps with a food truck?

“I can’t afford to retire,” Pemberton said. “When we first started, I put every penny I had into this. I made my mortgage, I made my car payment over the years, but there was nothing going into the bank.

“And the last six, seven months my wife and I have been taking money out of our savings account just to pay the payroll. I’ve got no working capital now. So we’re at a point now where I don’t know what to do.”