Pure Eatery in Fountain Square to close

Better-for-you restaurant concept Pure Eatery is closing shop at the end of this year.

After 10 years of operation, the restaurant at 1043 Virginia Ave. will permanently close Dec. 31, said bar manager Jake Stewart.

The business has been claimed by the coronavirus pandemic, specifically higher costs of food and a labor market eschewing the industry, Stewart said.

“COVID ruined everything. We made it through like the hard part; the shutdowns and all that stuff. But now on top of the fact that people still don’t want to work in this industry, the costs of our products have gone up by like 40%. It’s not viable anymore,” Stewart said. “Money was just hemorrhaging out of here on a daily basis without the return in sales that we had prior to COVID.”

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The decision to close was made recently, he said.

“We did it for as long as we could,” he said. “ If you’d asked us a week ago if we thought we were about to close, we would have said, ‘No.’ But we ended up having a meeting with our accountant because we were getting ready to resign our lease. And when they were looking at those numbers. That’s when they realized that it probably wasn’t going to happen.”