Tom's Ribs CLOSED (Donna: appointed, how much, school)

[TexHwyMan]

(Apologies if this is a duplicate, but I didn't find an existing thread about this.)

All of Tom's Ribs' locations have closed! Apparently the last one, in Stone Oak, closed shortly after New Years, and the other two closed sometime late last year.

My dad loved the place and still had a gift certificate from his birthday he hadn't used, so he's really disappointed.

Anyone know what happened?

[Bowie]

There was discussion of it in the thread below.

http://www.city-data.com/forum/san-a...nt-rumors.html

I don't think the reason was mentioned.

[banker]

In the commercial lending world we are seeing large scale financial troubles in the restaurant industry as people are spending less and less. Closing/Failing restaurants will become a new trend over the next 12-18 months.

[TX_AGGIE13]

Good!! Hopefully the economic mess will drive most of the corporate junk of resturants out, and force them to close their doors so that more of the local mom and pop types of establishments can start regaining some stature in the community. Who needs another Chili's, Jim's, IHOP, Sonic, McDonnald's, Olive Garden, etc....

[dosriveras]

Unfortunately, those types of restaurants will always survive. Sooo--support your local favorite "mom & pops". The bad ones will weed themselves out. The hubster & I haven't cut back on going out, we just learned to order different and less.

[KY Filly]

Originally Posted by TX_AGGIE13

Good!! Hopefully the economic mess will drive most of the corporate junk of resturants out, and force them to close their doors so that more of the local mom and pop types of establishments can start regaining some stature in the community. Who needs another Chili's, Jim's, IHOP, Sonic, McDonnald's, Olive Garden, etc....

While I think it's important to support local mom and pop restaurants, I sure wouldn't wish any ill will or hopes of failure (closing their doors) to any business. These types of restaurants employ and sustain honest hardworking people and often the "chain" restaurants are owned individually (franchised) by small business owners. I don't want to see anyone out of work.... JMHO

[mamatotex97]

KY Filly, I was about to post the same.
If you don't like those chains you don't have to eat there but I would not wish them to be closed down. That will affect many hardworking people who rely on their jobs there. What any city doesn't need is a bunch of closed up empty buildings........

[GWhopper]

I posted some posts about Tom's Ribs closing on a couple of threads here at City-Data SA. That place used to be a hangout for my former co-workers when I used to work near Stone Oak, and I was actually there when the managers told the employees they would be closing on January 4th. The story is simple: Summer for them is like Christmas for retailers. When kids are out of school and back from college is when they make the most money. According to the employees we talked to, the summer business simply did not materialize and because margins in the resaturaunt business are so narrow, they simply did not make enough money in 2008 to continue operations. One girl told us that normally during the summer they have people having to wait outside for a table to become available, so they were at 100% table capacity. In 2008, they only had a couple of days when all the tables were full and people had to wait.

[case44]

Originally Posted by TexHwyMan

All of Tom's Ribs' locations have closed! Apparently the last one, in Stone Oak, closed shortly after New Years, and the other two closed sometime late last year.

My dad loved the place and still had a gift certificate from his birthday he hadn't used, so he's really disappointed.

Anyone know what happened?

That one comes as a little bit of a surprise. I thought the chain did pretty well is SA, since it was local, even though their sauce was a bit bizarre. Ribs and brisket were okay, but there are other options for me elsewhere. It's still a surprise, though.

[perticusrex]

did not care for the food, however it is always sad when a business closes on someone considering how much work I am sure these people put into it.