-September 9,2021-
The lights are on at Tahoe Joe’s San Luis Obispo location but there is nobody home. The Promenade Shopping Center steakhouse on Madonna Rd closed August 26. A note taped to the door says it all – and offers thanks to the customers for their business – hoping “to serve you at another location very soon.”The restaurant has apparently suffered the same fate as the HomeTown Buffet eatery that shares the 15,000sf building with Tahoe Joe’s. The once popular all-you-can eat buffet turned off their lights in early 2016 and has not been replaced by any new tenant since.
Both restaurants were owned by the same parent company who has declared bankruptcy.
Earlier this year, Fresh Acquisitions LLC, the parent company of six restaurant chains with locations across 27 states, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
CNN reported in April “Prior to the pandemic, Fresh Acquisitions had about 100 locations across the United States of all of its brands. However, the company was all but wiped out with just six Tahoe Joe’s steakhouses remaining open in California.”
Once with 10 locations,Tahoe Joe’s is now down to five restaurants this month. Besides SLO, Tahoe Joe’s has now closed in Modesto and Chino. The Bakersfield, Visalia, Fresno, Roseville and Vacaville spots remain open as of this writing. Despite the name, they never had a Tahoe location.The original restaurant – built in 1996 was in Fresno – now closed.
More empty spaces
The westside of the SLO shopping center now has the building housing the former HomeTown Buffet and Tahoe Joe’s for lease along with the recent departure of the Dollar Tree where there is now another 9000sf available.
In the past few years the center was able to draw new strong anchor tenants in REI, Sprouts and now Hobby Lobby, under construction. It has one major 24,000sf retail space open.
In the front of the center, the former Applebee’s space is empty. All three vacant eateries are sit-down restaurants having been hurt by the Covid pandemic going on now for a second year.
Sit-down restaurants owned by Tahoe Joe’s parent company have been particularly hard hit with once popular Ryan’s Place having had more than 400 locations- now shuttered and HomeTown Buffet closing all of its 250 locations.
Steakhouses have been among those full service restaurants that may be suffering under America’s changing cuisine choices as well as the shuttering of the economy that includes the closure of many Golden Corral eateries although they just opened in Santa Maria- and some high-end Ruth Chris steakhouses.
Even during the pandemic there has been a boom in new drive-thru restaurants in California – a trend that has passed-by the city of San Luis Obispo where drive-thrus are banned.
Besides the job losses hurting the local economy, the owners of the center face an uphill fight to fill these darkened restaurant-apponited spaces. A typical Tahoe Joe’s has about 25 employees.