East Grand Forks cafe closes, another established to abide by

Burger King on DeMers Avenue, near the intersection of U.S. Freeway 2 and Minnesota Highway 220, has closed, and Italian restaurant Mama Maria’s will shut at the commencing of March.

It is unclear why Burger King shut down, but all signage has been removed. According to a message on the door, the closure is permanent. The restaurant shut during the week of Jan. 4.

Mama Maria’s, located downtown in the Riverwalk Shopping mall, will close on March 1. Ownership of the restaurant made the announcement on the business’s social media website page on Jan. 8. Kristen Scheving, along with her brother, Justin Hatcher, and grandfather, Steve Yanisch, bought the cafe in June 2019. The social media submit states they will give up their lease in the shopping mall at that time.

“(It is) just stuff with COVID, difficulties with COVID,” Scheving informed the Herald in a Tuesday, Jan. 12, phone call. “It’s a slower calendar year, unquestionably. I necessarily mean it’s only our next year that we’ve experienced it.”

The dining place will continue being shut by means of January, but the entrepreneurs will make a decision in February if they want to re-open for in-individual company. Scheving mentioned the cafe will proceed to offer takeout as a result of a third-party delivery supplier and curbside pick up.

Scheving advised the Herald it is in the restaurant’s “best interest” to not reopen the dining space, in spite of the state not long ago stress-free COVID mitigation measures that barred eating places and bars from obtaining customers on the premises. The choice is partly dependent on the selection of orders currently being received, she stated.

“It’s just how busy it is and whatnot we variety of have to base it off that,” she said.

But Scheving did not rule out the probability of bringing the cafe back again at some place. The on the web closure announcement reads: “We hope this isn’t goodbye forever, just goodbye for now.”

“Hopefully, possibly someday, we can glimpse into a different place, but, for now, it is really just not operating out with all the COVID stuff likely on,” she stated.