Barley & Swine Might be Forced to Close Next Week

Apparently, Barley & Swine's been dealing with quite a few issues lately, which may lead to the restaurant closing late next week. Owner/chef Jorgie Ramos tells us that about a year ago, the condo his restaurant is located in was found to have some faulty construction. After announcing they'd need to redo most pipe straps in the building because they were "unsafe," and needed "emergency repairs," they began the project about 3 months ago. Ramos was recently alerted that they'd need to put scaffolding around the entire building. "I understand and I don't want to stop this. The building needs to be repaired before it falls on us," he says, but wasn't happy about having to remove all of his signage. Ramos adds that he tried to work with the condo to acquire temporary signs for the front of his restaurant, which is already difficult to spot, before the tarp went up, but was turned down.

Signage, however, isn't the biggest problem. The chef tells, "by covering the building up the way they have, they create this effect called the Venturi effect, which is what occurs in the valley of mountains where a sort of suction is created. So now you'll be outside the building and there's no breeze, then in front of the restaurant there's like a 15 mph wind coming through." But a breezy walkway isn't what Ramos is most concerned with either. Apparently, the way way his air intake and exhaust is set up is in such a way that this effect is causing his restaurant to fill up with smoke over the day, forcing him to close the restaurant early each night. "The last three nights it's been a disaster in here, this place has been full of smoke," says Ramos. "Other places, when there's a problem, would do an extension of the exhaust hoods so you don't have situations like this, but the news I get now is that next week they're completely covering up my exhaust system, meaning that it won't be working at all. This means I will need to close down the restaurant."

there's a 99% chance that we'll be closed as of Thursday

Ramos is currently speaking with attorney to file paperwork with the courts in order to force the construction to stop until he and the condo can figure out a remedy. "Unless, the building decides to stop being idiots about this and take care of this now, there's a 99% chance that we'll be closed as of Thursday," says Ramos. Attorneys are advising him to close his doors immediately, find another location for his eatery and sue the condo association. The chef tells us:

This is completely heart-breaking and devastating. We've worked so hard and something that's completely out of our control is forcing us to shut down. Obviously, we're upset about it. Our guests and people who have become our family will be super upset by it as well and we want to make sure everyone knows what we're being forced out and how wrong we believe it is. Our hands are tied behind our backs with what's going on here. It literally happened in a couple of days. We put every penny we had into this restaurant; figuring out what to do here means pretty much being stuck between a rock and a hard spot. Hopefully it gets resolved.

We'll update with further developments as we find out about them.