The Crave Restaurant and Lounge closed its doors for the last time at its Gorham Street post Saturday evening.
According to Crave owner Eric Fleming, the economic downturn caused the restaurant and bar to go out of business.
“It’s been pretty tough — we are down about 50 percent in sales, so we are looking for a new spot and will hopefully be able to hold our liquor license,” Fleming said.
While looking to relocate to the cocktail lounge to State Street, Fleming, also the owner of the Orpheum Theatre and Platinum Tanning, said he will be moving some of Crave’s trademarks, including happy hour and DJ appearances, to the Orpheum.
Ald. Mike Verveer, District 4, said Crave was a fine addition to the downtown despite the problems surrounding the establishment, including Eduardo Cademartori’s homicide last year.
Cademartori, a racecar mechanic from Florida, was killed outside of Crave on Dec. 7 with a single blow to his head. Ross Spang, a former Crave employee, is accused of felony murder and allegedly threw the punch at Cademartori.
“For the last year for some reason or another, things changed,” Verveer said. “[Crave] had bad luck in terms of fights that occurred, police calls all of a sudden and all of that culminated in the horrific homicide and one of the Crave employees was charged with homicide. … I’m sure that contributed to the fall off of their business.”
In spite of the police attention garnered by Crave, Verveer added Crave provided food and cocktails the downtown public enjoyed.
Fleming hopes the restaurant and lounge will reopen this September.
Since the bar was located off State Street, Fleming said it was hard to compete with some of the visibility the pedestrian mall brings to establishments. He hopes moving to State will bring in twice as much revenue.
“It’s just a matter of finding a building that fits for a Crave venue,” Fleming said. “We have so many loyal customers and definitely enjoyed ourselves, but it’s time to move for a different and better location.”
— Taylor Cox contributed to this report.
