A marathon of late night bankruptcy court negotiations allowed R.J. Gators Inc. to officially change hands this week.

Kevin Dalton and Timothy Jeffrey’s J&D Restaurant Holding LLC paid $2.025 million to bring the home-grown restaurant chain out of bankruptcy court.

At the top of the new owners’ corporate to-do list: Re-open the shuttered Palm Beach Gardens store.

The eatery and another in Stuart were abruptly closed in mid-July after Gators founder and President Tim Timoteo filed a Chapter 11 petition with U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Florida.

Part of earlier bankruptcy court negotiations called for Timoteo to step down from the eight-restaurant enterprise he founded.

J&D’s Dalton says the Palm Beach Gardens store at Northlake and I-95 will “definitely” re-open at a later, unspecified date, and negotiations with the Stuart site’s landlord could lead to re-opening that restaurant on Southeast Gran Park Way as well.

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