Paula Dean Fired By Food Network Over Racial Slur

Well, I was never a big fan of deep fried cornmeal battered lard balls served with mayo.

The chances of her rebuilding her empire just went down to approximately zero

Paula Deen lands $75M comeback deal one year after career derailed by N-word scandal
Former Food Network star lost much of fortune after she admitted in a deposition that she used the N-word previously.

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS/
Wednesday, February 12, 2014

SAVANNAH, Ga. — Paula Deen has found a key ingredient to bringing some sizzle back to her career — a cash infusion worth at least $75 million from a private investment firm.

The Savannah-based celebrity cook announced Wednesday that she’s launched an umbrella company that will oversee her restaurants, cookbooks, product endorsements and other remaining slices of her media empire. The new company, called Paula Deen Ventures, said private-equity firm Najafi Companies is investing $75 million to $100 million to help Deen make a comeback.

Deen’s fortunes took a dive last year after comments she made under oath during proceedings in a lawsuit, namely that she had used racial slurs in the past, became public. The Food Network dropped Deen, as did pork producer Smithfield Foods, book publisher Ballantine and several other companies that paid her to endorse their products.

In a statement, Deen praised the partnership with Phoenix-based Najafi and the decision to name Steven Nanula, who has already worked with Deen for the past two years, to serve as CEO of Paula Deen Ventures.

“I know this is the right decision to lead my team, as we continue to share quality products with my fans — whose love and support have built my brands,” Deen said.

Jahm Najafi, CEO of the Najafi Companies, said his firm has great respect for Deen’s past success and is confident its investment will pay off. Others brands to benefit from Najafi’s investments include the Phoenix Suns pro basketball team, the Book of the Month Club and SkyMall, the direct marketing business aimed at travelers.

“We know that the enterprise will be successful and valuable, as Paula and her team continue to bring quality products and experiences to her loyal fan base,” Najafi said in a statement.


Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/tv-movies/paula-deen-lands-75m-comeback-deal-article-1.1611712#ixzz2xsbj1mgf

Paula Deen's comeback trail is leading her to the Smoky Mountains of east Tennessee.

The Savannah, Ga.-based celebrity cook announced Wednesday she's opening a new restaurant, Paula Deen's Kitchen, in Pigeon Forge, Tenn. A hub for tourists visiting the Dollywood theme park and the nearby Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Pigeon Forge draws about 10 million vacationers a year.

Paula Deen Ventures, a new company launched to manage Deen's comeback after she acknowledged past use of racial slurs in a lawsuit last year, said it's pouring $20 million into the 20,000-square-foot restaurant. Earlier this month, Deen's company announced it's getting at least $75 million from a private investment firm.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/eats/paula-deen-open-20-million-restaurant-tennessee-article-1.1702895#ixzz2xsaNB3jb

YOU DONT DO THIS. EVER!

Uncle Bubba's, co-owned by Paula Deen and her brother, closes after 10 years
April 3, 2014
By MARY LANDERS AND COREY DICKSTEIN

As long-time employees collected severance checks in the parking lot, Uncle Bubba’s Seafood and Oyster House announced its closing Thursday morning on its website and Facebook page.

“Thank you for 10 great years,” the written comment stated, “Uncle Bubba’s is now closed.”

The Whitemarsh Island restaurant is co-owned by Paula Deen and her younger brother, Earl W. “Bubba” Hiers Jr.

It was at the center of a storm of negative publicity Deen weathered last year after a former Uncle Bubba’s employee filed a lawsuit alleging racial and sexual discrimination. In a deposition, Deen admitted she had used a racial slur 30 years earlier.

The claims and lawsuit were eventually dismissed but not before she lost millions in national endorsements and the Food Network announced it would not renew her contract.

Hiers decided “to close the restaurant in order to explore development options for the waterfront property on which the restaurant is located,” he said in a written statement released through the Key Group Worldwide, a New York-based public relations firm.

The 350-seat, nearly 10,000-square-foot restaurant sits on 2.7 acres. Its most recent tax assessment puts the property value at $1.5 million. Brother & Sister Enterprises LLC acquired it in 2004 for $2 million, tax records indicate.

“At this point, no specific plans have been announced, and a range of uses are under consideration in order realize the highest and best use for the property,” the prepared statement continued. “The closing is effective today, Thursday, April 3, 2014. Employees will be provided with severance based on position and tenure with the restaurant. All effort will be made to find employees comparable employment with other Savannah restaurant organizations.”

View a slideshow of photos of Paula Deen, Bubba Hiers and Uncle Bubba's.

A spokesman for the New York firm did not respond to the question of how many people were employed by Uncle Bubba’s.

In Hiers’ deposition in 2013 he testified that he frequently viewed pornography on company-owned sites at work and had a history of cocaine use and alcohol abuse. He admitted taking money from the restaurant in 2010 — allegedly as much as $25,000 to $30,000 a month, a practice Deen eventually discovered. He said his sister was in control of the business but it was never a big money maker.

“The company had never shown a lot of profit,” Hiers testified.

The health department last inspected Uncle Bubba’s in February. It received a score of 83 with points deducted for repeated violations of proper hand-washing procedures and improper temperature holding of potentially hazardous foods.

Late Thursday morning a barrier blocked traffic to the former restaurant’s parking lot where a uniformed police officer turned some vehicles away and let others pass.

Savannah-Chatham police patrol cars remained in the area for much of the morning; people gathered near the roadblock declined to speak about the establishment’s closing or why a roadblock with police officers was set up.

Some long-term employees were shocked to discover they no longer had a job and turned to the restaurant’s Facebook page to vent.

“I’ve been water works all a.m.,” wrote one poster who said she’d been employed there for seven years. “I’ve worked there since I was 16. I woke up this a.m. to no job and no forewarning.”

Earlier this year Deen signed a deal with Phoenix-based private investment firm Najafi Cos. worth between $75 million and $100 million. Called Paula Deen Ventures, the partnership will be the umbrella name for Deen’s many brands.

Its first major investment will be Paula Deen’s Family Kitchen, a $20 million, 20,000-square-foot restaurant and retail operation, scheduled to open in late summer in Pigeon Forge, Tenn., home of the Dollywood theme park.

A statement released by Najafi in February when the partnership was announced praised Deen’s The Lady & Sons as “one of the country’s most popular regional restaurants.”

It did not mention Uncle Bubba’s.
http://savannahnow.com/latest-news/2014-04-03/uncle-bubbas-closes-doors#.Uz4cwHbD_3g

I think closing that restaurant was likely part of a move to get her brother Bubba out of her business ventures.

About two weeks after raising between $75 million and $100 million for her new company Paula Deen Ventures, beleaguered ex-Food Network star Paula Deen has announced plans to open a new restaurant in Tennessee. According to the press release, Paula Deen's Family Kitchen will be located with the "family-friendly real estate project" The Island in Pigeon Forge in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, neighboring the Dollywood theme park. Regarding the restaurant's cuisine, Paula's son Jamie tweets: "Food influence from mom to Matthew and everyone in between." There will be a retail component as well.

The massive 20,000 square foot restaurant (with a "a projected design, construction and yearly operation budget of nearly $20 million") is expected to open later this Summer and is Paula Deen Ventures first, um, venture. The opening date comes just over a year after a deposition in a now-dismissed lawsuit was leaked in which Deen admitted to using racial slurs, causing a public relations nightmare and costing millions of dollars in lost in endorsement deals.

One, $75 million is not a lot.

One company, however, doubled down on Deen in her hour of need: Alice Travel, which has coordinated five "personality" cruises with the chef since 2010. On June 25, in the midst of the bad press blitz, a spokesperson for Alice announced that the New Jersey-based company was not only continuing its relationship with Deen—it was adding a second cruise date mid-summer due to "the amazing response we've had in the past years from Paula's fans."

Public reaction to the cruise announcement was split between indignation and encouragement; either way, everyone forgot about it quickly because it was summer and we had other things to do. But the thing about making headlines in June by announcing a cruise in January is that, come January, those headlines must materialize into a real trip with embarkation times, and cabin assignments, and nausea medication, and paying customers, and paid personalities—even if no one is paying attention anymore.

But I was. So I booked a ticket. I wanted to know what life was like in the Paula Deen Universe half a year later. I wanted to see who was willing to spend, at minimum, roughly $3,000 to support a downtrodden millionaire. I wanted to see if there were any black people.
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At capacity, the Reflection carries 3,030 passengers. Of that, 139 of us are there for the January 2014 Eastern Caribbean Paula Deen Cruise. (In past years, the Deen group has been larger. Paula is fixated on the attendance drop-off—"I was kinda worried that the group on this cruise was so small," she says over and over again, "but I really love it!" She also assures us that the second cruise, in July, "will probably be crazy.") The main differences between our vacation experience and the vacation experience of the non-Deen cruisers is that we have exclusive access to a number of Paula Deen events, and also that we are paying several hundred dollars more per person for staterooms identical to theirs. We are distinguished from other passengers by our green or blue name tags featuring the smiling face of Paula Deen, and by our complimentary Paula Deen Cruise totebags.

The average Deen cruiser is a woman in or fast approaching her sixties, slightly overweight but not obese. She was likely born (or spent a great deal of her life) in the part of the Southern United States that could be colloquially referred to as "Dixie," but may live somewhere else now. This is almost certainly not her first cruise, and there is a 1 in 4 chance it is not her first Paula Deen cruise. She is either widowed or divorced. She thinks Paula got a bum deal. She is wearing at least one thing that is the color aquamarine. She is white.