Eddie D. kicks off new career

Training diet of ex-49ers owner: Pizza, pasta and Ed & Eddie's Ice Cream

Carl Cronan

To set the record straight, Edward J. DeBartolo Jr. says he never really went away. He just changed coasts, companies and careers.

Now a resident of Tampa, Fla., where one of his best friends is mayor, the former 49ers owner and scion of a real estate development empire is mapping out a new set of plans, starting with a pizzeria and ice cream stand.

"It was my choice to go in the other direction," said the president of DeBartolo and Associates. "I just wanted to do some interesting things."

Along with ex-Oakland Raiders tackle Ed Muransky, DeBartolo opened Tomatina, a pizza-and-pasta eatery named for the annual tomato-throwing festival in Bunol, Spain. The restaurant is in a newly developed area north of Tampa.

Next door to Tomatina, they established Ed & Eddie's Homemade Ice Cream, a fledgling franchise with a logo depicting the height differential between its owners.

Indeed, DeBartolo has maintained a sense of humor throughout his well-chronicled ordeal in which he pled guilty in 1998 to failing to report a felony in a federal investigation involving the issuance of a riverboat casino license in Bossier City, La.

DeBartolo paid a $1 million fine and agreed to two years' probation, then was fined another $1 million by the National Football League, which suspended him for a year. His sister, Denise DeBartolo York, took over ownership of the 49ers, which won five Super Bowls while Eddie DeBartolo owned the franchise.

"We really had an interesting run that 23 years," he said.

Although the siblings continue to settle the $1 billion-plus estate of the late Edward J. DeBartolo, Forbes magazine recently stated that Eddie DeBartolo may have gotten the better end of the deal: $570 million in family stock in the Simon Property Group and various private real estate estimated at $60 million.

And the 49ers have since played less-than-Super Bowl football, going 4-12 last year and 4-8 so far this season.

DeBartolo is now using his wealth -- reportedly $780 million -- to develop new concepts such as Tomatina and Ed & Eddie's, which he described as a starting point for more retail development in the Tampa Bay area.

He and Muransky are studying a broad range of potential strip center and mall locations in Tampa, St. Petersburg and Orlando, and are maintaining contact with several anchor department store chains, he said.

"It would be sort of a déja vu," said DeBartolo, who practically grew up watching his father's company develop about half the malls in central Florida.

"We just haven't been in that business because of other things that have been going on, but those relationships and friendships are still there."

Muransky, who knows DeBartolo from their hometown of Youngstown, Ohio, said they are studying a number of potential development sites along Tampa's northern edge.

DeBartolo and Muransky moved to Tampa last year after visiting with Mayor Dick Greco. They intended to move to Orlando until Greco took them to dinner and drove them around to development sites in the Tampa area.

Had it not been for DeBartolo's prior relationship with Greco, who worked for his father's company as a vice president, he and Muransky say they probably wouldn't have come to Tampa.

"With the redevelopment and growth in Tampa, coupled with the DeBartolo name, we knew we could basically set up shop here and do nothing else in the country and have a helluva company just in Tampa proper," Muransky said.

DeBartolo, who is completing a 20,000-square-foot home on 6.5 acres in Avila, said he envisions plenty of new development -- and redevelopment of older properties.

He said DeBartolo and Associates has hundreds of millions of dollars in the pipeline for future development, primarily involving retail space but possibly including offices, restaurants and hotels.

As for Tomatina, a restaurant concept inspired by a similar one in the Napa Valley, DeBartolo said he would like to open five more locations in the Tampa area but is being cautious about where to open them.

"We're not going to put one on every street corner," he said. "It's going to be done with a lot of common and financial sense."

He's already heavily hawking the Ed & Eddie's ice cream brand, saying it has the right balance of quality and texture between Ben & Jerry's and Dairy Queen.

"You will say without any question that this is the best ice cream you ever ate," he said. "It is absolutely phenomenal."