Jackson Free Press

Two Jackson-area restaurants, Char (4500 Interstate 55 N., Suite 142) and Amerigo (6592 Old Canton Road, Ridgeland), are under new ownership, following a half year in court-appointed receivership. David Joseph, Doug Hogrefe and Paul Schramkowski finalized their purchase of the Amerigo restaurant chain for $6 million on July 23. The chain includes three branches of the high-end Italian restaurant in Tennessee, along with the Ridgeland location and Char, a Chicago-style steakhouse in Highland Village.

Joseph was general manager of the company's Mississippi restaurants. He took over operations at the Ridgeland Amerigo in 1991 and ten years later, opened Char in Jackson. Hogrefe has worked his way up from a server position, which he started in 1990 while finishing a degree at Millsaps College. He has managed two Tennessee Amerigo locations, in Brentwood and Nashville, since 2003. Schramkowski is executive chef for all the company's restaurants.

Schramkowski is co-founder, with Nashville restaurateur David Blackburn, of Vivid Restaurant Concepts. Vivid purchased the Amerigo chain in 2006 with the help of $8.5 million in credit from General Electric Capital Corporation. In 2007, the company opened new locations in Knoxville, Tenn., and Louisville, KY, but it lagged in payments on the credit and GE forced the company into receivership in 2008.

Kevin O'Halloran, the court-appointed receiver from Atlanta, closed Amerigo's Knoxville location in April. The court-approved buyout also omits the Louisville location from the deal.

Joseph did not immediately return a call for comment.