We long feared this day was coming.
When the long term owner of the Getaway Café sold the place three years ago, the new owner kept buzztime, but always threatened to drop it, even once complaining he was "only making a 20% profit off of buzztime"
He badly bungled a bunch of other things in the place too, and finally bailed out just over a year ago, selling it to another new owner.
The latest owner also kept buzztime as well.
What we didn't (fully) expect, though, was the latest owner completely shut down the place without warning three weeks ago and filed for bankruptcy.
We knew business was slumping. About seven months ago, a portion of the main access road to the Getaway Café collapsed during flash flooding. The road has been closed ever since. The department of transportation estimated back then that the repair work would be complete in October (they've now pushed it back to November). So if you want to get to the Getaway Café from that direction, it's at least a 15 minute detour, and a lot of customers are unwilling to do that.
A restaurant across the street from Getaway said their business has been down 30% since the road closure, although they do remain open.
Last night, we got word that the Getaway Café has been sold again to a new owner. The new owner is doing a revamp. He's changing it into a sports bar/restaurant and giving it a new name. He plans to open in a few months.
Whether he'll keep buzztime is anyone's guess, but knowing the track record of these switchovers, we're not exactly getting our hopes up.
For now our team is splitting its time between two places, BWW in West Mifflin and The Elbow Room in McKeesport. Neither option is all that appealing so our gameplay will decline as well.