RIPLEY – The Ripley Sonic Restaurant will create about 30 to 50 jobs when it reopens in a few months under new management, the man who bought it said Wednesday afternoon.

The facility will be extensively remodeled, and will open its doors 60 to 90 days after the remodeling work is done, according to Greg Malatesta, a Clarksdale native who has a house at Pickwick lake, and owns several other Sonic restaurants in northeast Mississippi and west Alabama.

“We’re now opening up a Sonic in Belmont. Once that’s done, we plan to begin remodeling the Sonic in Ripley. The restaurant here will look completely different. It will have a new outside. It will be retrofitted with a new look outside, and new patio tables and a new awning installed. We plan to be open for business about 60- to 90 days after the remodeling is complete,” Malatesta said.

Said Ripley Mayor Kerry W. Hill this week: “It was a pleasure to negotiate with him, and we wish him all success in the world.”

The restaurant will be open 6 a.m. until midnight seven days a week.

He said several factors caused him to buy the Ripley restaurant. “It fit our demographics (the statistical study of human populations) very well. It’s in a high-volume location, with a school across the street, and another business will soon be locating nearby,” he said. He added that the eventual widening of Miss. 15, which will allow it to carry more traffic, also influenced his decision.

Along with Ripley, Malatesta now owns Sonic restaurants in Iuka, Belmont, Baldwyn, Ripley, New Albany, Ecru, Belden, Amory, Okolona, Tunica, and Clarksdale. He is now opening up Sonics in the Alabama cities of Russellville and Vernon.