Matt Fish and his partners have made the difficult decision to shutter two of the newest
Melt Bar and Grilled locations, in Canton and Dayton.
"We did our finances for 2023 and unfortunately, because we're still feeling the effects of the pandemic, sales and volume are still down and we were forced to make some drastic changes," says Fish. "We couldn't make our budgets work with eight stores so we started to think outside the box."
After crunching the numbers, Fish says the team landed on reducing the number of stores. As both the newest and farthest locations, the five-year-old Canton and Dayton shops drew the short straws.
"These stores were producing stores, they made money, but they also had the highest expenses in the company because of logistics: they cost more to operate because they were so far from Cleveland," Fish explains.
Fish says that for now, six locations feels right. In the future, he adds, if the business climate changes, new locations are possible.
"We're living in a new world right now and we've got to make some unfortunate sacrifices to make sure that we stay successful, stay in business and keep the other 250 people that I have on staff employed."
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