Restaurant closings
Saw something about this the other day, I think, but the Bulletin has an article today: Ciao Mambo in downtown Bend closed its doors.
Local eatery Ciao Mambo closed its doors last week after serving Italian cuisine to Bend for more than a year.
Owner Gary Sather cited the down economy as the primary reason for shutting down. He said he has been planning to close Ciao Mambo, which employed 17 people, for months.
“The economy is just real bad in Bend,” Sather said. “Our business model didn’t fly under the conditions.”
I thought it was probably doing all right, so I’m a bit surprised to read that the owner planned the closing for so long.
And news comes out today that McGrath’s Fish House (over by the Bend River Mall Promenade) is filing for bankruptcy; there are no plans for closing—yet—but it sure seems like an ominous sign. If they do end up closing this year, I wouldn’t be surprised in light of the Chapter 11.
Back story: Gary & Linda were IT people who had never run a restaurant. Gary has said many things to the employees and community since the restaurant opened and he often contradicted himself. Additionally. a lot of money was unnecessarily spent on overtraining and overstaffing the restaurant from the beginning. Gary and Linda left town several months ago. This closing is no surprise to anyone who was behind the scenes. The franchise was supposedly going to be bought back by the Ciao Mambo Corporation. Unfortunately, the community and Bank of the Cascades will now have to live with a huge amount of unpaid debt which are not only the result of the economy; rather, these are ramifications of the Sathers’ lack of knowledge, experience and untruthfulness.