More Johnson County restaurants close permanently: ‘It’s 100 percent COVID-related’

Restaurants swiftly shut down for COVID-19 shelter-in-place orders in mid-March, followed by weeks of closed dining rooms, and having to ramp up takeout and curbside just to pay overhead.

Now some local restaurateurs are looking at the forecasts — rising COVID-19 numbers, mandated restrictions, wary consumers — and deciding the best option might be to close for good.

Here’s a look at four in Johnson County.

▪ Pizza Street has successfully operated in Shawnee’s Westbrooke Village shopping center for two decades.

It’s seen many other tenants come and go, changes in ownership, redevelopment proposals tossed around, some buildings plowed down, and storefronts go dark.

But its customers kept coming.

So for its 20th anniversary, brothers Brian and Greg Porembski were in negotiations to renew their lease and even remodel the building. Then came the pandemic. Now Pizza Street is closed permanently.

“It’s 100% COVID-related. It’s pretty upsetting,” Brian Porembski said. “I had kids who worked there whose parents worked there. My general manager has been there 17 years and my assistant manager for 14 years. Now they have to go get a job in the restaurant industry. It is really bad for the employees.”

But Porembski said he’s luckier than most. He has other businesses and his Pizza Street is debt-free.

“But if I had signed a lease June 2 and a remodel and COVID happened after that it could have easily been devastating,” he said. “I got out without being severely harmed. We had a good long run.”

▪ In Overland Park, Marrio’s Donut Shop announced its permanent closing with a May 31 Facebook post, saying it couldn’t survive the financial effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Owner Mica Marriott pivoted to just carry-out only on March 18. The next day her suppliers called to say they sold out their inventory to local grocery store chains and bakeries.

“That really pulled the rug out from under me,” she said.

Churches, which were 35 percent to 40 percent of her business, also canceled regular orders when they were not holding in-house services. Marriott took a job as a part-time cashier at a neighboring liquor store and received a $1,000 loan from the U.S. Small Business Administration.

“Meanwhile, the landlord wants rent. Utilities. That’s $4,000 a month,” she said. “A lot of people don’t realize how big small business overhead is, especially in Johnson County, you also are paying the taxes, too, on that space.”

She opened two years ago and said most small businesses don’t really make a profit for the first year or two.

“I will hear people complain about some little restaurant raising the cost of coffee from 90 cents to $1.10 and they say they will just go to McDonald’s,” she said. “The American dream is not as attainable as it was 20 years ago. Corporate America is everywhere.”

In January her husband was in a car accident and she had to close the shop for nearly a week and then worked shorter hours for the rest of the month to get back home to tend to him. She was trying to recoup some of those lost sales when the pandemic hit.

She auctioned off her equipment and worked out a deal with her local landlord for the remainder of her five-year lease.

“I just ran out of money. I had many sleepless nights,” she said. “Everything worked out as good as it could under these circumstances and a lot of it is that the landlord was so understanding and good to me.”

Landlord Fred Merrill with the Merrill Cos. said: “We were so sorry to see it not work out. She worked very hard and was such a bright and energetic person.”

As for Marriott, she has a new goal: put in an application for at least one job each day.

▪ The local Pie Five Pizza Co. franchisee closed two Johnson County locations.

The restaurant at 13366 Metcalf Ave., Overland Park, shut down in May after nearly seven years, and the owners converted it to a new concept they created, Cultivare. They also started selling their Pie Five pizzas in some grocery stores.

In July, they closed their Pie Five Pizza in Mission after nearly five years.

“The impact of COVID on our sales was the largest driver of the move,” said Kerry Goebel, partner in the family-owned franchise.

This story was originally published August 10, 2020 at 12:29 PM.