PORT HADLOCK — A restaurant featured on a reality show makeover in February could close next week because of its lease, its owners say.
It was a shame “to have this happen after all we’ve gone through,” said Holly Pritchett, who runs the Zoog’s Caveman Cookin’ Restaurant & Cave Lounge owned by her father, Bret “Zoog” Forsberg.
“We are hoping we can do something at the last minute, but if we can’t, we want to let people know what’s happening so they can have some great food,” she said.
Pritchett said the business at 141 Chimacum Road may have to close March 28 after losing its lease because the building reverted to a former owner.
Pritchett said Trudy Boedticker said the business could stay where it is if the owners come up with $16,000 by March 28 to renew the lease.
Boedticker could not be reached for comment.
Pritchett said the potential closure has nothing to do with anything said on the “Restaurant Impossible” show that aired in February after the place was given a makeover in November.
“We are not closing due to debt,” the owners said on their Facebook page on Wednesday.
The post was added after an initial post Tuesday afternoon announcing a possible closure date of March 25.
Wednesday’s post was more hopeful, indicating they had bought a few extra days.
“We didn’t mean to panic anyone or have anyone think 100 percent that we were closing,” the post said.
“We are working on a few different options to pay to start a new lease,” Pritchett said.
“We have hope. . . . We have until the 28th.”
The business has some possible backers, and Pritchett said Wednesday she is optimistic it will be able to stay open.
If the money cannot be secured, the restaurant could close and then reopen later, she said.
In any case, the catering business, which uses a food cart, will continue and fulfill contracts that have been signed for the summer, she said.
The Port Hadlock barbecue restaurant opened in October 2012 with a 1,900-square-foot bar and restaurant on Chimacum Road after serving out of a food cart at several local fairs and events.
Business was good at first but tapered off.
Last year, Forsberg contacted the producers of “Restaurant Impossible,” a show on the Food Network that selects distressed restaurants and provides a $10,000 makeover in a three-day period.
The barbecue restaurant’s closure began Nov. 14. It reopened Nov. 21 with new flooring, paint, wall coverings, refreshed tables, new chairs and repaired kitchen and bar equipment.
Business spiked after the renovation last fall and the airing in February, Forsberg said.
It has calmed down now, he said, and is about the same as this time last year.
Both Forsberg and Pritchett say the show experience was mixed: It increased business but caused them to play a role.
“It was all staged, but it is the price I paid for a million dollars’ worth of free publicity,” Forsberg said.
“I don’t know anyone who can drink a keg a week and still work, but I told my daughters that if you want to tell them I go upstairs after work and wore their mother’s dresses, I didn’t care.”
“People think that a reality show is real, and it’s not,” Pritchett said.
“It’s all beefed up to make good TV. They had us saying things that weren’t true.”
Jayson Elmore, an associate producer on the show, said he was unaware of the closure.
He said the network does not comment about individual businesses once the show has aired.
“Time is not on our side right now,” Pritchett wrote on the restaurant’s Facebook page.
“If we are closing down, let’s make this last week a week to remember and go out with a bang!! You never know, we’ve been saved before maybe we can pull something out of our hats?!”
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Jefferson County Editor Charlie Bermant can be reached at 360-385-2335 or cbermant@peninsuladailynews.com.
