2 popular Pittsburgh restaurants close their doors

The past 24 hours have brought permanent closure announcements from two popular Pittsburgh eateries, Downtown’s NOLA on the Square and East Liberty’s Spoon.

Spoon’s announcement came yesterday through Facebook, though the rationale is more complicated than just the financial pressures which have accompanied covid-19 restrictions.

According to Spoon’s part-owner and founder, Brian Pekarcik, the East End food scene pioneer’s lease was to expire this August, spawning a series of negotiations. Talks began in March then were tabled until May, which was long enough for the realities of restaurant ownership in a pandemic to set in.

“I think once I was able to remove my emotion that I had tied up in Spoon and the space, it became much more clear for me that taking the opportunity not to renew the lease, to close up the operation, lay low for a little bit and really try to regroup and recharge and try to figure out what the future holds,” Pekarcik said.

The highly-acclaimed Spoon opened in June 2011 as one of four restaurants in a now-bustling corridor of East Liberty, and it’s the third to officially close its doors in a matter of a few weeks.

“While Pittsburgh has come leaps and bounds with their dining scene and all the amazing restaurant that have opened, Pittsburgh itself still isn’t one of those major markets like New York or LA or Chicago or San Francisco. We don’t have the dining density population who are looking to go out seven days a week,” said Pekarcik of the unique pressures facing restaurants in the East End, specifically. “We all kind of start to steal that little piece of the pie from each other.”

Pekarcik and businessman Rick Stern run S+P Restaurant Group, which also includes three BRGR locations, Willow and, formerly, Grit & Grace. The group was the recipient of federal Paycheck Protection Program funds at the end of April, which are allowing the group’s other operations to survive, according to Pekarcik.

The decision to close Spoon became official two to three weeks ago, but Pekarcik prioritized one-on-one meetings with each employee and attempts to place them elsewhere before making the decision public.

Just hours later, news broke that NOLA on the Square will permanently close its doors, according to Pittsburgh Magazine.

John Gresh, whose band, John Gresh’s Gris-Gris, has performed at NOLA monthly for the past nine years, said he received an email from a NOLA assistant manager on Sunday night alerting him to the closure.

On Monday night, Gresh posted the following on the band’s Facebook page:

“This is a difficult but not an unexpected post. We were notified that NOLA on the Square is closing and will not be needing our services. Incidentally, our last gig in March was our 9 year anniversary playing there. It’s rare to have a gig continue that long and we count ourselves fortunate for the opportunity to make music.”

NOLA’s one-of-a-kind bayou vibe has been a Market Square mainstay since 2011. The restaurant temporarily closed during Allegheny County’s stay-at-home order and chose not to reopen when the county reached the green phase on June 5, with the permanent closure announcement taking some time to materialize.

Restaurants, like these two, whose takeout business was either minimal or nonexistent, face more of an uphill battle, according to Pekarcik.

“Restaurants who haven’t had that factor built into their operations, such as Spoon, it’s a really difficult process to just throw into an already-running operation who may not have delivery drivers,” he said, citing the additional costs of offering disposable utensils, condiment packets and packaging.

Mounting closures

On Friday, Jamison Farm plans to host a five-course outdoor dinner at its operation in Unity. Proceeds from the ReUnion Farm Dinner will benefit the chefs and staff of Union Standard, a former Downtown Pittsburgh restaurant which closed permanently in June.

It is one of nearly 24,000 restaurants nationwide listed on Yelp as being closed — with 53% of those being reported as permanently closed by the popular review site.

Since March 1, the site reported more than 175,000 business in the country that had closed because of the pandemic. That number was reduced to 140,000 as of June 15 as a number of businesses reopened, according to the Yelp: Local Economic Impact Report.

“In March, restaurants had the highest number of business closures, compared to other industries, and have continued to close at high rates,” according to the report. “Of the businesses that closed, 17% are restaurants, and 53% of those restaurant closures are indicated as permanent on Yelp.

“Restaurants run on thin margins and can sometimes take months or even years to break even, resulting in this higher rate of permanent closures.”

Restaurant closures in Westmoreland County include Valley Dairy, which last month shuttered its downtown Latrobe location, and K-Vays Restaurant in Sewickley Township.

K-Vays posted on Facebook in late March that it was excited to reopen to customers for takeout service. The 4-acre commercial property between Herminie and Irwin is now listed for sale for $900,000.