Benissimo to reopen under new owners

On the heels of an acquisition, the new owners of Benissimo Gelato and Sorbet are seeking to begin wholesaling next month.

Shawn Burgbacher, who owns the Springfield franchise of Breadsmith, joined forces with businessmen Trevor Crist and Steve Strobel to form Center City Foods LLC. Early this month, the business partners bought Benissimo from Inspired Foods LLC for an undisclosed amount.

Burgbacher said pending inspections on the 4,000-square-foot downtown building, 540 W. McDaniel St., the new owners aim to have the gelato wholesale operations up and running within weeks.

“If we could hit $100,000 in sales, that would be awesome,” he said of the team’s year-end goal.

Before closing in September 2014, Benissimo sold gelato in bulk to Harter House, MaMa Jean’s Natural Foods Market LLC and Price Cutter.

Burgbacher said Center City Foods would target those businesses and others as clientele.

Inspired Foods bought Benissimo FCB Desserts LLC, which launched the venture in January 2012.

“From what we’ve ben able to gather, they did a little bit and ran into some capitalization problems,” Burgbacher said of Inspired Foods.

Crist, CEO of Nixon & Lindstrom Insurance, also co-owns downtown diner Casper’s Chili Parlor. A consultant at Pinnacle Family Advisors LLC, Strobel also has been involved with Crist in Inflatable Gorilla LLC, which was purchased in March 2015 by casino games and event disc jockey company Ozarks Entertainment LLC.