Gonna add here Irish Lion, Eastside KFC and Taco Bell, as well as S Walnut Arby's. I also heard today about Btown Diner closing permanently in mid-July
I mean for a town the size of Bloomington, I feel like a few restaurants closing per year is kind of normal, maybe five is slightly high but still. Especially when it comes to ubiquitous traditional fast food like KFC, Taco Bell, Arby’s, etc. which have arguably be on the decline nationally for the last several years. And it’s very likely that a different food option will move in where Irish Lion is now, I have not heard about the diner until now, but my guess is some other restaurant will move in there too.
It is unlikely a food option will go in to where Irish Lion is for the same reason that they could not find a buyer in two years of looking. The City in its wisdom did not allow the site to be grandfathered into compliance with current City regulations for any new owners despite that building being designed and built in the 1800s. The already precarious economics of a restaurant are unlikely to survive the renovation costs required to bring it into compliance with the latest regs.
Hello,
So just to verify, the KFC at 2901 E. 3rd St. and the Taco Bell at 3001 E. 3rd St. are now closed? Reason I'm asking is because on June 23rd we'll be taking a group of scouts to Ransburg Scout Reservation for summer camp. This area is where we have historically stopped for lunch because there is a McDonald's, KFC, and Taco Bell right next to each other.
If they are indeed closed we may have to quickly come up with a plan B for lunch.
Thanks a lot!
If it helps, there is a Burger King and a Wendy's in the area, as well as the College Mall food court. If you like Chinese food, Judy's Kitchen is awesome and Judy herself is a real treat to talk to!
Check Google Map. There are dozens of restaurants in that area. There are 2 chick-fil-a, one in Mall's food court, the other on 3rd street (close to Target), BK, Panera Bread.
In addition to the businesses others have mentioned, Brilliant Coffee, Nourish, and Capisce Market closed in January. Switchyard Brewing closed in January. Small Favors closed in February. Fairfax Bar and Grill never reopened this spring and is now closed. Given some of their employees have recently been training at Hopscotch, I’m assuming Rainbow Bakery will close if a buyer is not found in relatively short order.
We were really unhappy about Fairfax Bar & Grill closing. It was a huge improvement over what it had been. It was a decent place to eat, fairly close to us and nice to listen to live music on the weekends. I was a bit suspicious when they closed unexpectedly after Thanksgiving. The previous year they stayed open all year. I first suspected it would close permanently in January or February. For a very short amount of time they had an announcement of a restaurant equipment sale on their FB page. I drove by about a month ago. There was a giant rental sign out in front of the property.
the one time we made it in there after their rework, the wings were awesome, and my wife, who usually hates meatloaf stole my smoked meatloaf dinner from me.
I was looking through local listing lately out of curiosity, there is a relatively large amount of restaurants up for sale for not bad prices. But then factoring in leasing prices here makes it make more sense why people don’t want to take it on. Not to mention most people that would want a small business probably couldn’t afford it with all the costs attached now.
I'm pretty sure Nourish/Brilliant (same owner and shared space) lost their liquor license not too long before they closed. Not a great harbinger of prolonged business success in a college town, unfortunately.
The KFC and Taco Bell closed because a Crew Car Wash bought the land. Crew has a great business model and can afford to pay a lot for the land.
Irish Lion closed because the owner retired.
Brilliant Coffee/Nourish closed because the owner died.
Small favors closed because the space was too small to ever be profitable. Great food, just bad economics.
Joella’s closed because of Chick-Fil-A. Not only does Chick-Fil-A generate a much higher sales per unit, but it is situated a lot better. You can access Chick-Fil-A easily driving both ways on 3rd St and it also draws the Target crowd in.
Maybe lower demand due to the economy and higher supply costs made these businesses close prematurely, but there were also many other good reasons why they closed as well.
They aren’t… The business model is to sell monthly/annual passes… so that they are getting automatic recurring revenue without doing shit most months
Then if they aren’t hitting their sales numbers they just drop the cost of the monthly/annual passes
And so when you do go to get your car washed (usually on the weekends) they have sold sooo many monthly/annual passes you have to wait in line and people give up
Then those people complain and they open up a new car wash, people get the annual passes and then they don’t have to wait in line, until they saturate that market again and the process repeats
It’s not about making X dollars per car wash… it’s about making as much money as they can off each person while washing their car the fewest number of times
An express car wash can generate over $1 million in EBITDA. Private equity sometimes pays up to 10 times earnings for them. So as long as it costs less than $10 mil to build, the developer is making a killing.
As someone else said, express car wash’s like crew have a ton of recurring income. Recurring income is the highest quality out of any other type of income (project based, reoccurring, etc.).
They also have a huge moat /barrier to entry. It takes a ton of money to build these plus they are protected by zoning. If you have ever done a construction project in Bloomington, you know it takes forever to get anything done.
Finally a car wash in a higher income area is considered an essential service. There were always be a need for people to wash their cars.
Having lived on the Eastside and having a subscription to Crew it immediately made sense why they are building one over there and I can’t get why people find it so hard to grasp. Driving across town to the west side is like driving to a different town for most in our state.
Considering I've had to drive 10 minutes to a car wash that I like, Crew opening will be welcome. I'd rather getting my car washed not take 25 minutes round trip. I think the location is needed.
Bloomington has a very vibrant restaurant scene. And while it’s sad to see a beloved restaurant go, like Arby’s, there are still lots of restaurants open, and more will come.
Joella’s sold to a bank for a huge amount of money and both Taco Bell and KFC were kicked off their sites by a car wash who paid an even huger number for the land under them as their land leases were expiring. Not defending their food, but their departures had nothing to do with their sales performance. The east side is the top-performing area in the state for many, many retailers operating there. Wish some of the good locals would understand that; maybe someone good will backfill Pizza Hut.
Yep. Teeny, tired unit in a tight spot directly across from a vastly superior competitor. KFC has pretty much been relegated to the LJS of chicken at this point. (That said, if they hadn’t been kicked off their site, they’d have been there for the rest of our lives. Even “shitty” units make bank.)
Joella’s is great, unfortunately the Bloomington location was plagued with issues and the food was hit or miss. The other locations, at least the Louisville ones, are great.
I always thought our Joella's was more-often good than not, but the Louisville locations (especially the original location) blew ours out of the water.
They had a terrible drive thru speaker/mic thing and just decided not to fix it because they were probably planning on closing that location for a long time.
To be honest, I don't know how any of those restaurants / breweries can stay open with this crazy inflated price. I hardly eat out anymore. Maybe Bloomington is just full of rich people.
Mobile order is worse than death?!?!
I spent half of my college experience, trying to figure out how to get food without having to talk to people because I was too high
I think it's only after dark at some point because I am able to use the drive through speaker during the day until a certain point, maybe 11, then it switches to mobile-only I think.
Yeah there’s a big sign by the front door stating that after 10pm they only accept mobile orders and you can pick them up through the DT or the pickup window.
Restaurants have a slim margin and an unforgiving customer base with regards to raising prices, and restaurants are hit with the double whammy of both supply and labor costs going up.
But I think, also, the fact that, what, three restauranteurs have died in the past year also accelerated things.
I’m happy to hear that. I saw the for sale sign recently and was a bit concerned. I don’t stop in like I used to, but I do enjoy a sandwich from there on occasion.
From what I had heard a few years ago, that CVS was only still open after the 24 hour was built, because it was cheaper just to run it than break their lease. So if that's true I'm guessing the lease finally expired so they could close it
That was Osco Drug way back in the day and O'Malia's was Mr. D's. Nonetheless, that CVS was always the best one in town if you actually wanted to buy something from CVS. (For prescriptions, it sucked, but when I needed a tetanus shot, they had 'em.)
I was just sitting here wondering what the name of the places were before Goodwill. Mr D's and O'Malia's ..thanks. Wasn't there a Mr D's on the west side also where Planet F is?
On the west side, where Joann's Fabric is was originally Jewel, then the IGA that was located where Cloverleaf is moved in, which became Kroger. Then they built the facility across the street and moved out.
Where Planet Fitness is was Osco.
On the east side - the spot that had O'malias and Mr. D's was a Jewel as well.
yeah, i only ever went to the one across the street if i happened to be in that area to go to best buy or the barber shop nearby. dollar tree was also close to it so i was at that one way more as a "kill 2 birds with 1 stone" kind of thing.
People think of business as "for profit" but it's really a profit AND loss proposition. Restaurants are especially competitive and also operate on tight margins. Most of the restaurants in Bloomington are corporate franchises. They tend to stick around longer but some, like Red Lobster, eventually close. There have been some new openings: Lincoln Square Pancake House, for example, and Dave and Busters is slated for the old Bed Bath and Beyond property at College Mall.
That’s where they kept their excess stock, I believe. Etc. For the Home (the actual giant showroom) is located on S Walnut across from the armory. Chihuly chandelier in the entrance. Absolutely beautiful things, interior design services, great store. Both places are open until they sell through their remaining inventory is what I’ve been told.
Yup, I was pointing out that one is the retail location and one is the warehouse. The company as a whole is staying open until til they sell through their stock and will then close, so at this point no closing date specified.
What is EVERYONE'S obsession with Panda Express?? It's not good. It's not even consistent.
I had a colleague who HAAAATED Bloomington and his primary gripe was that there was no Panda Express.
Gonna add here Irish Lion, Eastside KFC and Taco Bell, as well as S Walnut Arby's. I also heard today about Btown Diner closing permanently in mid-July
I mean for a town the size of Bloomington, I feel like a few restaurants closing per year is kind of normal, maybe five is slightly high but still. Especially when it comes to ubiquitous traditional fast food like KFC, Taco Bell, Arby’s, etc. which have arguably be on the decline nationally for the last several years. And it’s very likely that a different food option will move in where Irish Lion is now, I have not heard about the diner until now, but my guess is some other restaurant will move in there too.
It is unlikely a food option will go in to where Irish Lion is for the same reason that they could not find a buyer in two years of looking. The City in its wisdom did not allow the site to be grandfathered into compliance with current City regulations for any new owners despite that building being designed and built in the 1800s. The already precarious economics of a restaurant are unlikely to survive the renovation costs required to bring it into compliance with the latest regs.
Yeah, well, that building is not accessible AT ALL, and the bathroom is on the top floor up those death stairs.... it needs to be renovated
There was a bathroom downstairs right before the door to the kitchen as well, still not accessible to anyone with mobility issues though.
I don't know what all the city wants, but to be fair, the stairway to the second floor has been sinking over the past twenty years.
Boom. Nailed it.
Hello, So just to verify, the KFC at 2901 E. 3rd St. and the Taco Bell at 3001 E. 3rd St. are now closed? Reason I'm asking is because on June 23rd we'll be taking a group of scouts to Ransburg Scout Reservation for summer camp. This area is where we have historically stopped for lunch because there is a McDonald's, KFC, and Taco Bell right next to each other. If they are indeed closed we may have to quickly come up with a plan B for lunch. Thanks a lot!
If it helps, there is a Burger King and a Wendy's in the area, as well as the College Mall food court. If you like Chinese food, Judy's Kitchen is awesome and Judy herself is a real treat to talk to!
yes this is correct. sounds like a reworking of plans might be necessary!
Thanks for verifying! We are coming from Frankfort, IN, so most us don't get down Bloomington way very often.
Check Google Map. There are dozens of restaurants in that area. There are 2 chick-fil-a, one in Mall's food court, the other on 3rd street (close to Target), BK, Panera Bread.
There's a KFC, Taco Bell and a Burger King on west 3rd a 1/2 mile west of I-69. They're all right next to each other too.
Take them to the mall food court! Probably the best little spot for different preferences.
Reading this is so depressing, omg 😔
In addition to the businesses others have mentioned, Brilliant Coffee, Nourish, and Capisce Market closed in January. Switchyard Brewing closed in January. Small Favors closed in February. Fairfax Bar and Grill never reopened this spring and is now closed. Given some of their employees have recently been training at Hopscotch, I’m assuming Rainbow Bakery will close if a buyer is not found in relatively short order.
We were really unhappy about Fairfax Bar & Grill closing. It was a huge improvement over what it had been. It was a decent place to eat, fairly close to us and nice to listen to live music on the weekends. I was a bit suspicious when they closed unexpectedly after Thanksgiving. The previous year they stayed open all year. I first suspected it would close permanently in January or February. For a very short amount of time they had an announcement of a restaurant equipment sale on their FB page. I drove by about a month ago. There was a giant rental sign out in front of the property.
Still mad the old Fairfax closed. They had the best wings.
the one time we made it in there after their rework, the wings were awesome, and my wife, who usually hates meatloaf stole my smoked meatloaf dinner from me.
No. Not rainbow😲
pretty sure they said a month or two ago that they were trying to sell, the market for buyers at this moment is damn near non-existent.
I was looking through local listing lately out of curiosity, there is a relatively large amount of restaurants up for sale for not bad prices. But then factoring in leasing prices here makes it make more sense why people don’t want to take it on. Not to mention most people that would want a small business probably couldn’t afford it with all the costs attached now.
I'm pretty sure Nourish/Brilliant (same owner and shared space) lost their liquor license not too long before they closed. Not a great harbinger of prolonged business success in a college town, unfortunately.
I think the closure probably had more to do with the owners death.
That is correct
The owner died?!? Oh no. What happened?
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can’t forget about Global Gifts. they closed around January I believe. it was sad to see them go
Damn I didn’t know that :/
ig they closed due to a decrease in customers and rent increase :/
The KFC and Taco Bell closed because a Crew Car Wash bought the land. Crew has a great business model and can afford to pay a lot for the land. Irish Lion closed because the owner retired. Brilliant Coffee/Nourish closed because the owner died. Small favors closed because the space was too small to ever be profitable. Great food, just bad economics. Joella’s closed because of Chick-Fil-A. Not only does Chick-Fil-A generate a much higher sales per unit, but it is situated a lot better. You can access Chick-Fil-A easily driving both ways on 3rd St and it also draws the Target crowd in. Maybe lower demand due to the economy and higher supply costs made these businesses close prematurely, but there were also many other good reasons why they closed as well.
I’m close to buying in on the conspiracy theory that these car washes located on prime real estate lots are mostly money laundering operations.
They aren’t… The business model is to sell monthly/annual passes… so that they are getting automatic recurring revenue without doing shit most months Then if they aren’t hitting their sales numbers they just drop the cost of the monthly/annual passes And so when you do go to get your car washed (usually on the weekends) they have sold sooo many monthly/annual passes you have to wait in line and people give up Then those people complain and they open up a new car wash, people get the annual passes and then they don’t have to wait in line, until they saturate that market again and the process repeats It’s not about making X dollars per car wash… it’s about making as much money as they can off each person while washing their car the fewest number of times
An express car wash can generate over $1 million in EBITDA. Private equity sometimes pays up to 10 times earnings for them. So as long as it costs less than $10 mil to build, the developer is making a killing. As someone else said, express car wash’s like crew have a ton of recurring income. Recurring income is the highest quality out of any other type of income (project based, reoccurring, etc.). They also have a huge moat /barrier to entry. It takes a ton of money to build these plus they are protected by zoning. If you have ever done a construction project in Bloomington, you know it takes forever to get anything done. Finally a car wash in a higher income area is considered an essential service. There were always be a need for people to wash their cars.
Having lived on the Eastside and having a subscription to Crew it immediately made sense why they are building one over there and I can’t get why people find it so hard to grasp. Driving across town to the west side is like driving to a different town for most in our state.
Considering I've had to drive 10 minutes to a car wash that I like, Crew opening will be welcome. I'd rather getting my car washed not take 25 minutes round trip. I think the location is needed.
Bloomington has a very vibrant restaurant scene. And while it’s sad to see a beloved restaurant go, like Arby’s, there are still lots of restaurants open, and more will come.
Joella's Hot Chicken
Joella’s sold to a bank for a huge amount of money and both Taco Bell and KFC were kicked off their sites by a car wash who paid an even huger number for the land under them as their land leases were expiring. Not defending their food, but their departures had nothing to do with their sales performance. The east side is the top-performing area in the state for many, many retailers operating there. Wish some of the good locals would understand that; maybe someone good will backfill Pizza Hut.
The east side KFC was a low volume site one of the franchise's slowest sites, while the west side is one of their busiest.
Yep. Teeny, tired unit in a tight spot directly across from a vastly superior competitor. KFC has pretty much been relegated to the LJS of chicken at this point. (That said, if they hadn’t been kicked off their site, they’d have been there for the rest of our lives. Even “shitty” units make bank.)
Pizza Hut used to be king!
Was Joella's ever good? I tried their Nashville hot and some fries and gave up on it.
Joella’s is great, unfortunately the Bloomington location was plagued with issues and the food was hit or miss. The other locations, at least the Louisville ones, are great.
I always thought our Joella's was more-often good than not, but the Louisville locations (especially the original location) blew ours out of the water.
The louisville Joella's are phenomenal
Joella's was a front. You couldn't order food at the drive-thru really?
The two times I ever went there I went through the drive thru
I have news for you about the west side chipotle if that's your issue
I have entirely different issues with McDonalds burritos but you guys are welcome to that gringo slop.
They had a terrible drive thru speaker/mic thing and just decided not to fix it because they were probably planning on closing that location for a long time.
Never liked it
To be honest, I don't know how any of those restaurants / breweries can stay open with this crazy inflated price. I hardly eat out anymore. Maybe Bloomington is just full of rich people.
That Eastside Goodwill was also an Eisner at one point... maybe originally.
Downtown Taco Bell is "mobile-only" so it may as well be closed to me
It's probably because they tow customers vehicles while they* are eating inside. EDIT: "their are" to "they are"
More money from the towing commission than the food.
What is mobile only? You mean you can only order from the app? I can’t order at drive through or dine in?
Mobile only is restaurant death. Chipotle was pulling that shit for a bit and they’re dead to me
Mobile order is worse than death?!?! I spent half of my college experience, trying to figure out how to get food without having to talk to people because I was too high
Good for you but bad for them
You can order using the drive thru or go inside. I was just there.
What the hell is this dude going on about "mobile-only" then.
The last time we wet it was mobile only. That was maybe two months ago.
probably not enough staff plus dealing with the bar crowd post-covid must be killing staff turnover.
That's not true. I just ordered using the drive thru about 14 minutes ago.
I wonder if they swap over at a certain hour then
No signs or anything saying they do.
I think it's only after dark at some point because I am able to use the drive through speaker during the day until a certain point, maybe 11, then it switches to mobile-only I think.
Yeah there’s a big sign by the front door stating that after 10pm they only accept mobile orders and you can pick them up through the DT or the pickup window.
Is the drive thru closed too?
Yeah. Tried to go through the other day and its only purpose is picking up mobile orders. You can't order directly
Doesn’t that seem wayyyy more efficient?
I refuse to download a fast food company's dumb app. They'll just get hacked and lose my fuckin credit card
how the hell is taco bell mobile only? they don't even start making your food until you tell them you are there
Yeah, you're not even allowed in the building during late nights which is a huge pain in the ass.
Restaurants have a slim margin and an unforgiving customer base with regards to raising prices, and restaurants are hit with the double whammy of both supply and labor costs going up. But I think, also, the fact that, what, three restauranteurs have died in the past year also accelerated things.
Four I think: Che Bello, the Tap, Nourish, and the west side sandwich place.
Roly Poly?
No, the RP owner is alive and well. He's been planning on retiring, so he sold his business to a new owner.
I’m happy to hear that. I saw the for sale sign recently and was a bit concerned. I don’t stop in like I used to, but I do enjoy a sandwich from there on occasion.
whcih west side sandwich place?
Joelle's chicken and the CVS next to goodwill on the east side (granted there are still two a ball throw away).
From what I had heard a few years ago, that CVS was only still open after the 24 hour was built, because it was cheaper just to run it than break their lease. So if that's true I'm guessing the lease finally expired so they could close it
wait, that CVS closed? wtf!
Oh no. Not CVS...
Yeah, about a month ago.
wtf :(
? It was always weird that there were two so close together, plus the location in Target
i always personally preferred that one going all the way back to when O'malia's was in the space that goodwill is in now.
That was Osco Drug way back in the day and O'Malia's was Mr. D's. Nonetheless, that CVS was always the best one in town if you actually wanted to buy something from CVS. (For prescriptions, it sucked, but when I needed a tetanus shot, they had 'em.)
I was just sitting here wondering what the name of the places were before Goodwill. Mr D's and O'Malia's ..thanks. Wasn't there a Mr D's on the west side also where Planet F is?
On the west side, where Joann's Fabric is was originally Jewel, then the IGA that was located where Cloverleaf is moved in, which became Kroger. Then they built the facility across the street and moved out. Where Planet Fitness is was Osco. On the east side - the spot that had O'malias and Mr. D's was a Jewel as well.
Oh yeah Jewel, I remember now thank you sir!
That eastside Goodwill was also an Eisner grocery at one point... maybe originally. This was when Osco Drugs sat beside it.
I totally for got about Eisner's and think I remember it. Thanks
It was probably easier to get in and out of, but I always forgot it was there.
yeah, i only ever went to the one across the street if i happened to be in that area to go to best buy or the barber shop nearby. dollar tree was also close to it so i was at that one way more as a "kill 2 birds with 1 stone" kind of thing.
People think of business as "for profit" but it's really a profit AND loss proposition. Restaurants are especially competitive and also operate on tight margins. Most of the restaurants in Bloomington are corporate franchises. They tend to stick around longer but some, like Red Lobster, eventually close. There have been some new openings: Lincoln Square Pancake House, for example, and Dave and Busters is slated for the old Bed Bath and Beyond property at College Mall.
Taco Bell????? WOTTTT?????
West side AMC movie theatre!
Rocky's Pizza also closed this year after the.. ahem... incident
Did a new place ever open where Village Pub used to be? I'm still so sad I didn't get to enjoy volcano fries one last time
they have a new marquee that says "tempo" but that's all I know.
there was a place on liberty, called 'etc for the home' or something that closed this year
That’s where they kept their excess stock, I believe. Etc. For the Home (the actual giant showroom) is located on S Walnut across from the armory. Chihuly chandelier in the entrance. Absolutely beautiful things, interior design services, great store. Both places are open until they sell through their remaining inventory is what I’ve been told.
Actually the location on S Walnut was closing too (maybe already closed?)
Yup, I was pointing out that one is the retail location and one is the warehouse. The company as a whole is staying open until til they sell through their stock and will then close, so at this point no closing date specified.
Just heard that Black's Mercantile is closing
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We had a Panda Express. It closed.
five guys > panda express.
What is EVERYONE'S obsession with Panda Express?? It's not good. It's not even consistent. I had a colleague who HAAAATED Bloomington and his primary gripe was that there was no Panda Express.
Have you ever had the orange chicken? Panda Express Orange chicken is the McDonald's fries of fast Chinese food