The end of one year and beginning of another inevitably bring a flurry of articles about the independent restaurants that have closed for good.
For anyone who has watched the industry over time, it becomes a circle of life kind of thing. Restaurants die. And new ones are born. It will always be thus.
In their end-of-year reviews of 2024, there was carnage in Los Angeles. There was pain in Miami. Evolution in Oklahoma. Sadness in Sarasota. Farewells in Fayetteville.
And in San Francisco, operators said it’s impossible to operate.
Churn can be a good thing. It brings innovation and fresh ideas. It’s good for the liquidators. But at the same time, it can be terribly sad to lose the dining spots that become part of the fabric of our lives.
There are many reasons why restaurants close. Some long-time venues, like the 40-year-old Charlotte, N.C., restaurant Fenwick’s, were closed as owners aged out and wanted to step into retirement. Chef Julian Serrano is also retiring, closing his restaurant Picasso in Las Vegas, and stepping away from Lago (both in the Bellagio) and Julian Serrano Tapas (in Aria Resort). In San Mateo, California, Sam Sugiyama is also retiring and closing Sushi Sam Edomata.
This year, however, the wave of restaurant closures has an undeniable theme. No matter the market, this year operators are blaming the challenging business environment for their decision to cut losses and call it quits.
They point to the ongoing obstacles since the pandemic: high food and labor costs, a changed consumer, and hikes in rent.
And the exits have continued into 2025. Here’s a look at a smattering of closures across the country just over the past month so far, and the reasons behind the decisions.
[It should be noted, however, that the steady stream of closures does not seem to deter those birthing new concepts, which are coming fast and furious this year.]
Closures
Yannick Benjamin wrote in detail in the New York Times last month about the decision to close his Harlem restaurant Contento in New York, after three years. He blamed the combination of inflation, rising crime that required the need for security guards and declining profits.
But Benjamin also wrote about being forced to run a restaurant and taking no salary, while working full-time elsewhere to afford health insurance. “This is the cruel math of owning a small business and being disabled in America,” he wrote, and it’s a big reason why many are forced to leave the industry.
Seattle restaurateur Corina Luckenbach this week reportedly closed Bebop Waffle Shop, saying the last straw was an increase in the minimum wage. On Jan. 1, the city’s minimum wage increased to $20.76 per hour, and a local tip credit also expired.
For Luckenbach, that meant her payroll costs would increase by $3.51 per hour for each employee, and she had about a dozen working full- or part-time. That would make it impossible to bring home money for her own family.
Luckenbach told the Komo News, “This really pits the owners against their employees in a way that you can’t really speak honestly about the hardship that happens with paying people more, and people need to make more money in this city.”
In New Jersey, Jockey Hollow Kitchen and Bar in Morristown’s Vail Mansion said last week it has closed, after 10 years. The concept was recently named among one of the state’s 30 best restaurants by New Jersey Digest.
Owner Chris Cannon said on Instagram, “Since the Covid Pandemic, significant changes in consumer behavior, labor and cost increases across the board have made operating and producing the high-quality product we have been known for increasingly difficult.”
Cannon said a deal was in place to sell the restaurant, but the buyer backed out at the eleventh hour. “We find ourselves with no choice but to say goodbye.”
The Boston area’s Hook + Line closed on Jan. 1, after just a year. Owner Tom Schlesinger-Guidelli said in a statement to Eater, “It is no secret the thin line that restaurants walk with profitability, and even though we have created a beautiful and well-received restaurant, bar and market, it just isn’t sustainable for us to continue.”
In Los Angeles, the restaurant Lustig has scheduled its last day of service for Jan. 26. Chef Bernhard Mairinger is closing the concept after only one year in business, blaming, simply, “the economics of operating a full-service fine dining restaurant in Los Angeles.”
Downtown in LA’s Arts District, Guerrilla Tacos (and the adjacent Guerrilla Cafecito) is also scheduled to close permanently on Jan. 31 after 13 years.
Despite the concept’s acclaim, managing partner Brittney Valles-Gordon on Instagram said things have been “extremely strained” since the pandemic.
“We had hoped things would get better,” she said. “They simply have not.”
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