Capital City Bar and Grill will be closing in June to make way for a new tenant in the Capital City Shopping Center on S. Dirksen Pkwy.
Owner Al Houser said, “I have to be out by the end of June, but it will probably be more like three weeks. We’re trying to run down our stock.”
Houser acquired the business from a previous owner but said he never signed a lease for the space. “I didn’t want that risk, so we’ve been month-to-month for six or seven years now,” he said. Now the property manager has given him notice to relocate and he says he’s not the only one. “I was told they are taking several spaces, including ours.”
Representatives from Mid-America Asset Management, the company that oversees the shopping center, did not respond to requests for comment. However, information on the company’s website geared toward recruiting additional tenants lists Anytime Fitness as the proposed tenant for the space next to Big Lots, which is currently occupied by Capital City Bar and Grill. To the north, Dollar General is shown as a proposed tenant for what are currently multiple small spaces.
Houser said at this point he has no plans to move the business to a new location. Houser said of being displaced, “It’s unfortunate, but just a part of business.”
“The shopping center has lost a lot of foot traffic over the last few years, but we had our regular customers that came in. We probably would have kept going for a couple more years at least,” he said. For now, Houser is focusing on selling off the equipment and wrapping up the business.
“We’ve had a lot of good, faithful customers over the years and I’m trying to thank them all as I see them.”
