GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — Brick Road Pizza Co. announced Tuesday that it would be closing its doors for good at the end of the week.
The popular family-owned restaurant made the announcement in a touching Facebook post that chronicled their time in Grand Rapids and the struggle of owning a restaurant during the pandemic.
Even though restrictions were lifted for restaurants last summer, industry leaders in Michigan are noticing an unfortunate trend as businesses continue to struggle, and so does co-owner Jody Talbert.
"COVID kicked our butt and we can't recover," he says. "I just want to get out before we get any deeper. We cant get help. Nobody wants to work in the restaurant business anymore and nobody wants to dine-in. Dine-in is like 25 percent of what it once was."
The restaurant once had about 25 employees and now there's only a handful left. Talbert says that led to unexpected closures over the last two years.
"Somebody would get sick and we couldn't have staff to even operate so we didn't want to disappoint our customers," he says.
Restaurants have 53,000 less workers than at the start of the pandemic, and Michigan Restaurant and Lodging Association President Justin Winslow says rising inflation is a major problem for small business owners, too.
"They raised rates and menu prices higher than they had, and that doesn't deal with the compensation for the new overhead they have, so it's put them in a bind," he says.
Sixty percent of Michigan restaurants that applied for a Restaurant Relief Fund Grant didn't get it.
"That's clearly not enough," Winslow says. "The demand is still there."
Talbert says they got two PPP loans, but he says it wasn't enough to keep going.
"This is one of the hot spots in the city for several years, but everybody is struggling," he says. "We're gonna miss [our customers.] We have a lot of sadness and fond memories."
"We literally built a restaurant from nothing. Our blood, sweat, & tears went into it. As we learned, nothing about the industry is easy," the restaurant owners said in the Facebook post. "As much as we’d like to hang on, emotionally and financially we’re spent. We’ve decided to close our doors for good Sunday January 30th. We are heartbroken, to say the least."
The restaurant cited the pandemic as the major reason it is shutting its doors after 13 years of serving the Grand Rapids community.
"All the things on the radar that would potentially bring us down, a pandemic was not on it. We held up with takeout as long as possible. We reopened for dine in with all the precautions. Dropped things off the menu. We cut costs. We expanded using DoorDash. All things possible to keep going. As the pandemic raged on we did not come close to the patrons we once had."
The restaurant said that 2019 was one of their busiest years, but once the pandemic hit, staffing shortages combined with fewer customers really hit the bottom line.
Brick Road Pizza Co. is known for their unique gourmet pizzas and their extensive vegan menu. They were also very mindful of their environmental footprint by advocating for locally produced food and goods, using recycled materials in their packaging and using plates and utensils made from potato starch.
"I am heartbroken. My husband and I had our first date in your restaurant. Every special occasion we celebrated with brick road. We also would get a pizza every month to document our babies growth. We will miss you so much and wish you all of the best," Meghan commented on their Facebook post.
Brick Road Pizza Co. will be open for carry-out only Tuesday through Sunday from 4 p.m. to 9 p.m. and will close for good on Sunday, Jan 30, unless the restaurant runs out of stock sooner than that.
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