MAUMEE, Ohio — A one-of-a-kind restaurant dedicated to first responders is temporarily closing its doors.
"It's very disheartening," said Jamie Wietrzykowski, owner of Fire Station Bar and Grill. "We were thriving the six months before COVID hit."
The owner of Fire Station Bar and Grill says it has to do with the lack of staff and the ability to find quality managers.
“As far as my employees go, it wasn’t for lack of effort that the people I had worked for me, trying hard every day. It was from lack of being able to get a good management team and core team in, back of the house, front of the house, a general manager that actually cared about the business,” said Wietrzykowski.
The once-packed establishment is now quiet and empty.
"We made the announcement to close temporarily due to primarily staffing issues," said Wietrzykowski.
The owner of the restaurant in Springfield Township says that's been an issue since reopening during the pandemic.
He went from 100 employees to about 20.
"With the shortage of employees lately, it's just been an ongoing struggle," said Wietrzykowski.
And ever since then, it has been an uphill battle.
Wietrzykowski says he thought the candidate pool would open up as soon as the extra $600 pandemic unemployment money stopped.
But to his surprise, he says it hasn't.
So he had to hire younger, inexperienced staff.
"Because a lot of the managers would get frustrated that the staff that they had didn't know their position, or that they knew that we were short-staffed so there was no repercussions if they did not want to work harder," said Wietrzykowski.
He plans to take advantage of the situation by creating a new menu and hiring some new employees.
"I'm very hopeful that in the next six-to-seven months when we do reopen that the pool of employees will be a lot deeper than what it is right now," said Wietrzykowski.
And once again thrive and support our local first responders.
The owner of Fire Station Bar and Grill says he'd like to reopen the restaurant by spring, or at least patio season, so people who don't want to eat indoors can be seated outside.
