The Brown Bottle has closed its doors in downtown Moline, but another restaurant will be moving in, one of the building owners said Tuesday.

"We're not prepared to tell who it is, but we should be announcing it in a couple of weeks," said Rodney Blackwell, who owns the building with a group of investors.

The Brown Bottle, owned by Dave and Gina Landau, closed about two weeks ago. It was the second restaurant to occupy the space in the Fifth Avenue Building. It had opened in the former FIVE restaurant in November 2005.

"We struggled to keep it going as long as we could," Dave

Landau said. "It felt like we had just made the turn on that restaurant."

But he indicated that the decision to close was not theirs, and said Blackwell gave them 10 days to vacate. He acknowledged falling behind in rent.

But Blackwell called the decision "more of a mutual decision."

"It just wasn't panning out. It wasn't profitable and he didn't need the practice (running a restaurant)," he said of Landau, who continues to own Brown Bottle restaurants in Iowa City and North Liberty, Iowa.

"He's a good guy. There are no ill feelings," Blackwell said.

"This didn't have the same level of success that some of his other restaurants have had,'' he said. "It's a great space and the owners of that space want to put something in there that is extremely successful and can flourish as the area is flourishing."

Blackwell pointed to the addition of Willis of Illinois Insurance Corp. and its three dozen workers to the historic Moline Post Office as part of the momentum in downtown. He also owns that building.

The Fifth Avenue Building is owned by Blackwell, Mike Humes, Todd Vershaw and Robert Piehl.

"This was out of his (Landau's) market," he added. "We're looking forward to working with someone in the market."

The Landaus expanded their brand to the Quad-Cities after many years of operating Brown Bottle restaurants in Iowa City and North Liberty, Iowa. The Brown Bottle was founded in 1972 in Cedar Falls, Iowa, by Dave Landau's parents. Today, his brothers own the sister restaurants in Cedar Falls and Waterloo. Moline had been the family's first Illinois location.