Deal for Ontario’s Graber Olives fails, leaving future in doubt – San Bernardino Sun

At a crowded neighborhood meeting at Graber Olive House in June, the plan sounded ideal.

Graber, a nationally known business that had cured and canned olives in Ontario since 1894, but which had gone dormant in 2023, had a local buyer.

A well-regarded developer would use the property for weddings and a wine bar while leasing the olive facilities back to the Graber family to resume operations. Olives would be sold as soon as November, it was promised.

Hearing this, the overflow audience broke into applause.

The olive plans, however, did not ripen as expected.

Arteco Partners appears to have backed out, putting the Graber family back at square one. Without a financial infusion, they won’t be canning olives for the third straight year — or possibly ever.

“We’re disappointed. We’re crushed,” Maura Graber, wife of third-generation owner Cliff Graber, told me Monday. “We need a financial angel. And we hope it’s not too late for this season.”

The 2-acre property is back on the market for $3 million.

Jerry Tessier’s Arteco Partners has expertise in adaptive reuse of old, empty buildings, including packing houses in Redlands and Claremont, now food halls, and a dinner theater in Claremont, now a wedding and event venue.

Tessier didn’t get back to me before deadline, but he’d told me in June that the property has deferred maintenance totaling several million dollars and that multiple revenue streams — from olive sales, facility rentals and a small restaurant — would be crucial to getting Graber’s back on its feet.

Banks, Maura Graber lamented, were hesitant to lend money against Graber’s despite its 131-year history because the business had been mothballed the past two years.

“I think Jerry had great intentions and it was exactly what we were looking for. We have no ill will toward Jerry,” Graber said. “It’s hard to hold any ill will against him if he couldn’t make it work.”

Nevertheless, the clock is ticking for a business where timelessness is part of its brand.

Graber’s has been processing olives in the same location, a residential neighborhood in Ontario, since the close of the Gilded Age. Its equipment dates to the first half of the 20th century. However, its distinctive tree-ripened olives have been grown elsewhere since the late 1930s — first Hemet, later the Central Valley.

The nationally known business, touted on “The Tonight Show” by Jimmy Fallon, whose wife is a Graber’s fan, saw a series of disruptions in recent years.

The settlement of an expensive family lawsuit was followed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Social distancing limited Graber’s ability to produce olives on the assembly line and to reopen its once-popular gift shop.

And then, in 2023, its olive crop failed due to drought. It was Graber’s first crop failure since 1961 and perhaps only the second in its history. But it came at an already low ebb, with no inventory on hand.

In 2024, the family didn’t have the money to buy olives and hire seasonal staff. Phones in the shop were shut off and the website was shut down to save money. Cliff and Maura borrowed against their home. Now, “we’re at serious risk of foreclosure,” Maura said Monday.

With Tessier’s backing, the plan for this fall was to buy 10 tons of olives, far down from the peak of 50 million but a way to start up operations again.

In a small piece of good news, the ranch manager assured the Grabers on Monday afternoon that he would reserve part of the crop for them. But at this point the Grabers aren’t sure if or how they can pay for it.

“They won’t pick until October. We still have an opportunity to find an investor willing to buy the property and partner with us to cure and can olives,” Maura Graber said. “We’re running out of time.”

She thanked neighbors, the broader community and City Hall for their support as the plans to reopen circulated and received approval.