Houston-based Landry's bid $13.6 million for the aquarium in a public auction in bankruptcy court proceedings on March 4.
The nonprofit Denver aquarium cost $93 million to build and opened in 1999. It attracted 1 million visitors during its first year of operation. The aquarium filed for Chapter 11 reorganization in April 2002 and had $62.5 million in debt at a high interest rate, which drove it to bankruptcy. Under the protection of U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Denver, the aquarium continued to operate and remain open. It recently began accepting bids to assume ownership of Ocean Journey.
More than 500 underwater species are housed in the 1 million-gallon, three-story attraction.
Landry's owns and operates about 280 restaurants, including Landry's Seafood House, Joe's Crab Shack, The Crab House, Rainforest Cafe, Charley's Crab, Willie G's Seafood & Steak House, The Chart House and Saltgrass Steak House, as well as the Kemah Boardwalk, a 30-acre, family-oriented themed entertainment complex.
They plan on opening a -shock!- seafood restaurant inside. Seafood is about the last thing I ever want to eat after looking at coral reefs and jellies and all, but hell, if they're going to do it, why not sell fishsticks and octopus popsicles -PopOc!- in the aisles? I wonder if they'll follow the seafood recommendations that most aquariums give about which species are harvested in a safe to the environment way? Can they serve chunks of human to the sharks as the 3:30 show?
Willie G. wanted to just make a Steak House, but he just hated fuckin' sea creatures so much that he couldn't help adding them to his menu.
You don't find the normal assortment of delicious marine life on the menu at Willie G,'s, but rather the salt water opponents that -- in his mind -- wronged him. This includes not only the obvious assortment of killer whale, rod barnacle and bloodshark, but a few other no-spine, salty-fluid-craving odd beasties like the jellyfish, the sea sponge and of course all of your mothers.
