Just yesterday morning, management at Claddagh Irish Pub at Legacy Village in Lyndhurst informed its staff of 35 that the restaurant would be closing its doors on New Year’s Eve after 11 years in operation.
It’s always a painful decision, says Director of Operations for Claddagh Justin O’Driscoll, but doubly so given the time of year.
“Every closing is unfortunate, but we found employment for most of our staff,” he says. “It can be hard to find good staff – and we had good, solid people here – so that made breaking the news a little easier.”
O’Driscoll says that it wasn’t a lack of customers that deep-sixed this particular location, one of 13 Claddagh Irish Pubs scattered around the Midwest, it was the monthly nut.
“Take out January and February, when the weather just crucified us, we had a really good year,” he says. “The biggest issue we have there is what we're paying. It’s just huge.”
It likely didn’t help matters when Legacy lost the Apple Store to Eton.
Claddagh, by the way, is headquartered in Solon. For that reason, says O’Driscoll, the company is on the hunt for other possible local locations.
As for the large vacant space the closure leaves in its wake, it’s likely only viable to some other large national chain.
