SALEM — Salem was hit with two restaurant closures this week, with Olde Main Street Pub announcing it would be shutting down for the winter this Saturday, and East Sakura Sushi and Chinese Buffet announcing that it would be closing permanently Tuesday.
The offseason is always difficult for a city reliant on tourism, and the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic have made it all the more difficult for restaurants to thrive during the winter months.
“We shut down because, with the coronavirus, people aren’t coming here much anymore,” said a representative of East Sakura. “We couldn’t afford to pay the rent.”
Located on the former site of the Mandarin Super Buffet on 400 Highland Ave., East Sakura had become a favorite buffet spot of many Salem residents. Hundreds of locals commented on a Facebook post announcing the closure to share (mostly) positive memories of the restaurant.
Olde Main Street Pub, located on 121 Essex St., across from the Hawthorne Hotel, announced Saturday in a Facebook post that it would be closing for the winter season.
Co-owner Keiran O’Neill explained that the temporary shutdown was a result of a difficulty creating revenue to get through the winter months due to city and state restrictions.
“Like many other restaurants in the city, we all face the challenges that indoor dining presents with the state requiring ventilation, table barriers and limited capacity,” he said. “Since we only have a 70-seat capacity, we felt that serving 18 people at one or two sittings — and that’s if we were full each night — would not be enough to carry us, so we were left with no choice but to make this heartbreaking decision.”
These closings are the latest in a city hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic. In July, Scratch Kitchen, which opened in 2011, announced that it would be shutting its doors permanently.
Many restaurants, including Opus and Gulu-Gulu, have had to close up shop for a week or more following COVID-19 concerns.
Most recently, Turner’s Seafood announced to staff Friday that its restaurant was going to “hibernate” next week due to concerns over spiking coronavirus cases in Essex County. They will close on Dec. 8 and hope to reopen Dec. 15.
Restaurants’ ability to make profits this tourist season was hindered by the cancellation of Haunted Happenings events, limits to commuter rail service, and new requirements for seating and ventilation at restaurants.
Yet these restrictions seem to have been key in preventing a post-Halloween COVID-19 spike. While COVID-19 cases around the North Shore continue to rise, Salem’s cases have plateaued in recent weeks.
In the two weeks leading up to Dec. 1, Salem reported a daily incidence rate of 45.9 cases per 100,000 residents, at 3.78 percent positivity, and is considered a yellow community.
Compare this to Lynn, which had a daily incidence rate of 67.6 cases per 100,000 residents at 10.23 percent positivity over this period, and is considered a red community.
Olde Main Street Pub hopes to open again in 2021.
“Our hope is to get through the winter and to welcome you back in the spring,” the restaurant wrote in its Facebook post. “Until we meet again, take care of yourselves, and there is some light at the end of this long tunnel.”
Guthrie Scrimgeour can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @g_scrimgeour.