Wednesday, February 28, 2007
Mass. Street Deli closed for the last time on Sunday night. The 34-year-old restaurant faced tough competition from a growing number of restaurants in the downtown area.
Owner Bob Schumm said that the restaurant, located at 941 Massachusetts St., simply didn’t have enough business to make running it worth his while. When he got a generous offer for the real estate, he didn’t turn it down.
“The fact that there’s an extremely large amount of restaurants downtown makes everyone do less and less business,” Schumm said. “There’s not new diners, the market just gets sliced up.”
Lauren Foulkes was a manager at the restaurant until about a year ago. She wasn’t surprised that the restaurant closed.
“Some days we only sold like $200 worth of food,” Foulkes said. “We all kind of had a feeling it was going to happen.”
pullquote
The fact that there’s an extremely large amount of restaurants downtown makes everyone do less and less business.
-Bob Schumm
Katie Young, a manager until the restaurant closed, said that the slowest times were in the winter. In the fall and summer, the nice weather attracted more customers to the patio.
About 25 people worked at the restaurant — most of them students. Schumm said that many employees had other jobs they could go to, and others could be transferred to Buffalo Bob’s Smokehouse, 719 Massachusetts St., another restaurant he owns.
Schumm said running two restaurants of different styles was difficult, and he had been wanting to dedicate his attention to Buffalo Bob’s.
But he had some good memories at Mass. Street Deli. His favorite times were when Lawrence was flooded with fans during KU home football games and he would see lots of alumni in his restaurant. But Schumm knows that another restaurant will soon take Mass. Street Deli’s place.
“It’s gone into the history books, as they say,” he said.
Kansan staff writer Joe Hunt can be contacted at jhunt@kansan.com.
— Edited by Stacey Couch
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