Downtown Roanoke restaurants seeing varying effects on business after pandemic

ROANOKE, Va. (WFXR)– There have been a couple of closures recently in downtown Roanoke.

“It’s been a long time coming, we hung on as long as we could,” said Gary Walker, co-owner and founder of Cabo Fish Taco.

On Friday, May 3, he told WFXR about his decision to close his Downtown Roanoke location, which was announced on Tuesday.

“It takes a lot of volume to sustain one of our locations and in the downtown area, we just haven’t seen business bounce back like we’ve wanted to,” Walker said.

Walker explained that there were several problems including staffing shortages, insufficient customers, and rising supply costs, the same issues restaurants nationwide have been dealing with since the pandemic. Cabo is the second restaurant to close in downtown in the span of weeks. This includes on April 20 when Leonore’s Restaurant on closed its location in Roanoke.

However, not all downtown businesses are slowing down. According to a statement from Downtown Roanoke Incorporated, while they are sad to see the two restaurants leave, several new restaurants have opened up downtown in the past several months, and three more are expected to open this summer.

The Laughing Bull moved downtown last year, and one of the collaborators there gave WFXR an update on the move.

“When we first started, there were less people, but that had to do with the winter crowd and, you know, the rainy season and all that. But, the past couple of months, business it’s been booming, especially during lunch time – crazy business,” said Chef Brand Stinnett, owner of Lazy Bull Dog Catering Co. and collaborator of The Laughing Bull.

The Laughing Bull is located within the City Market Building. Elliot Broyles is the executive director of the Market Building Foundation, which houses several restaurants downtown.

“We’ve had a hundred thousand people through the doors this year so far. If you look back at 2019 at this date, there were only 109,000. So, we’re only 9,000 people behind in 2019 and we keep gaining month after month,” said Broyles.

The building has a monitor to detect when guests come in. Broyles says their numbers are up 70% compared to last year.

As other restaurants see a boost, Walker is hoping a new location will help his restaurant. He says they’re looking to lease a smaller space nearby for Cabo where there is more foot traffic.

“We love the area, we love our customers. We just don’t have enough of them,” said Walker.

Until then, the restaurant will still do pop-ups with their food truck. They also have a location in Blacksburg, Va.