Same reason they bought it, an opportunity too good to pass up presented itself. They bought the bar because the previous owner got himself into trouble with the IRS and had to raise cash in a matter of weeks. So they got a deal. They sold when a well-heeled regular customer of the bar offered them considerably more than anyone else would have. Besides, I was about to graduate college and they would have had to have been more hands-on then. They also had used the contacts they made in the bar industry to set up a network of ATMs that generated a good deal of cash floow with very little work. They make good money from that network to this day.