The coronavirus has caused another local San Diego business to shut down for good.
Just shy of their ninth anniversary, Tiger! Tiger!, a cornerstone of North Park has shut its doors, this time for good.
“It’s kind of oddly poetic,” said co-owner Jeff Motch. “We started this business nine years ago. We got the space 10 years ago because the economy was doing so poorly, people were walking away from their restaurants. And this one, literally the owner walked away and left everything inside. We took it over as is and now, almost 10 years later, we are walking away leaving everything inside.”
The pub is the latest casualty of the COVID-19 economic impact.
“It hit this particular business really hard because we don’t have the opportunity to do curbside pickup, there’s no space to do outdoor dining and none of the plans we could come up with didn’t work,” said Motch.
And after being closed since March, the costs to remain open were just too much, and with their lease up this month, they decided to close.
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“We’re spending thousands and thousands of dollars each month to be closed, so over six months that’s grown to this enormous amount of money,” said Motch.
Motch along with the other four co-owners of the restaurant also own Panama 66 in Balboa Park and Blind Lady Ale House in Normal Heights. And, they say those businesses are also struggling.
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“It costs more every day to stay open than what we can make,” said Motch. “The only reason we're actually open is so that some of our employees who needed the money...we reopened to give them jobs."
Motch says that as of now there is no plan to close those restaurants. He is hopeful the situation will get better.
“This is basically like starting a business all over again,” said Motch. “We are hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt and we as owners will probably not take a paycheck, if we’re lucky, until late 2021.”
