Another downtown Victoria eatery has been forced to close due to financial circumstances that are out of their hands.
Tombo Eats opened earlier this year in its Yates Street location, after months of construction and licensing setbacks, along with unforeseen costs and an unending amount of effort by its owner, Tom Moore.
Moore told Victoria Buzz the restaurant has officially closed, as of Friday, September 6th.
“It’s devastating,” he said. “I sort of feel a bit numb—it’s really sad.”
“When I closed [Tombo], it’s like saying goodbye to your pet, you know? You know it’s probably for the best but you really don’t want to.”
Moore added that this is the first time he has opened a restaurant, of which he has opened several, that was not a financial success.
He says that there are several contributing factors that led to his decision to close the restaurant, but ultimately, he found that for one reason or another, people are just dining out less.
“There’s a feeling of people not wanting to go out and spend money. I think everyone is on a tight budget,” More explained.
“There’s a bit of a strange feeling in the downtown area of Victoria of worry, I suppose. People are worried, they don’t want to spend money and they don’t want to be downtown.”
Among this main obstacle, Moore noted that the restaurant was vandalized numerous times, broken into three times and the costs that went into renovating and opening the space were astronomical compared to what he projected.
Related:
- ‘Toast to the good times’: Little Jumbo closing its doors for good after 40% rent hike
- Vancouver Island Brewing shutting down brewery and moving production to Phillips
When it comes to his staff, Moore says they took the news well, all things considered, and he noted that his number one goal in this endeavour was to not let them down.
“They were so understanding and supportive,” Moore said.
“They were my biggest worry to be totally honest. I wanted to push it so they had employment–I didn’t want to disappoint them.”
He also noted that they were his biggest support through this decision.
“I’m very proud of them and I love them dearly.”
Moore waited until after the weekend was through to make a public post about Tombo’s closure.
In his social media post he said that this is not the end of Tombo, just the end of their time in their Yates Street location.
“It’s early days, to be honest,” he said. “It’s not the end yet.”
“I love the brand, I love everything we did, I love our food, I feel like all of that was fantastic, it just wasn’t in the right spot. To just say that we’re shutting it down and never reopening doesn’t sit right with me.”
Though Moore had to make the difficult decision to close Tombo, his sandwiches, pastries and other food were revered ever since the restaurant opened.
The news of Tombo closing its doors comes just one week after Little Jumbo made a similar announcement and only two weeks after Vancouver Island Brewing announced they would be closing the brewery.
