Tc4 & Co. Hospitality, operator of Tony C’s Pizza restaurants and The League Kitchen in Austin, Texas, buys Mighty Fine Burgers Fries & Shakes

New owners to expand burger concept to other Texas cities

Bret Thorn, Senior Food Editor

January 7, 2021

2 Min Read

Tc4 & Co. Hospitality, a 7-unit restaurant group in Austin, Texas, said Thursday it had bought 4-unit Mighty Fine Burgers Fries & Shakes, which also is in Austin.

Tc4, which was founded in 2011, owns and operates two locations of Tony C’s Coal Fired Pizza, two locations of Tony C’s Pizza & Beer Garden and three units of The League Kitchen and Tavern, with a fourth slated to open later this year.

It is led by partners Tony Ciola and Creed Ford IV.

“We have been longtime fans of Mighty Fine’s concept, as well as the quality of food and service,” Ford said in a release announcing the acquisition. “When this opportunity presented itself, we knew we had to act quick.”

Mighty Fine was founded in 2007 by Ken Schiller and Brian Nolen, who with the sale to Tc4 are no longer involved in the business.

Like Tc4’s other concepts, Mighty Fine operates mostly in the suburbs, and Ciola said that made it “a natural fit.” He added that, although operational changes will be made at Mighty Fine, they wouldn’t have a significant effect on the guest experience.

“They have a great operation and we want to sustain what they’ve built,” he said.

With the acquisition, Tc4 now has around 500 employees, double what it had in 2019. It’s looking to expand Mighty Fine’s in the Austin area and other Texas cities in late 2021 and 2022.

"We are lucky to have gotten a brand that's been operated so well since 2007 and does such a good job with made-from-scratch foods, made to order, which we do in all of our brands,” Ford said. “We’re excited to grow the Mighty Fine brand in the coming years.”

Contact Bret Thorn at [email protected]

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About the Author

Bret Thorn

Senior Food Editor, Nation's Restaurant News

Senior Food & Beverage Editor

Bret Thorn is senior food & beverage editor for Nation’s Restaurant News and Restaurant Hospitality for Informa’s Restaurants and Food Group, with responsibility for spotting and reporting on food and beverage trends across the country for both publications as well as guiding overall F&B coverage.

He is the host of a podcast, In the Kitchen with Bret Thorn, which features interviews with chefs, food & beverage authorities and other experts in foodservice operations.

From 2005 to 2008 he also wrote the Kitchen Dish column for The New York Sun, covering restaurant openings and chefs’ career moves in New York City.

He joined Nation’s Restaurant News in 1999 after spending about five years in Thailand, where he wrote articles about business, banking and finance as well as restaurant reviews and food columns for Manager magazine and Asia Times newspaper. He joined Restaurant Hospitality’s staff in 2016 while retaining his position at NRN.

A magna cum laude graduate of Tufts University in Medford, Mass., with a bachelor’s degree in history, and a member of Phi Beta Kappa, Thorn also studied traditional French cooking at Le Cordon Bleu Ecole de Cuisine in Paris. He spent his junior year of college in China, studying Chinese language, history and culture for a semester each at Nanjing University and Beijing University. While in Beijing, he also worked for ABC News during the protests and ultimate crackdown in and around Tiananmen Square in 1989.

Thorn’s monthly column in Nation’s Restaurant News won the 2006 Jesse H. Neal National Business Journalism Award for best staff-written editorial or opinion column.

He served as president of the International Foodservice Editorial Council, or IFEC, in 2005.

Thorn wrote the entry on comfort food in the Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America, 2^nd edition, published in 2012. He also wrote a history of plated desserts for the Oxford Companion to Sugar and Sweets, published in 2015.

He was inducted into the Disciples d’Escoffier in 2014.

A Colorado native originally from Denver, Thorn lives in Brooklyn, N.Y.

Bret Thorn’s areas of expertise include food and beverage trends in restaurants, French cuisine, the cuisines of Asia in general and Thailand in particular, restaurant operations and service trends.

Bret Thorn’s Experience:

Nation’s Restaurant News, food & beverage editor, 1999-Present
New York Sun, columnist, 2005-2008
Asia Times, sub editor, 1995-1997
Manager magazine, senior editor and restaurant critic, 1992-1997
ABC News, runner, May-July, 1989

Education:
Tufts University, BA in history, 1990
Peking University, studied Chinese language, spring, 1989
Nanjing University, studied Chinese language and culture, fall, 1988
Le Cordon Bleu Ecole de Cuisine, Cértificat Elémentaire, 1986

Email: [email protected]

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