By Mark Webber | The Republic The Johnny Carino’s restaurant in Columbus has closed and moving trucks were at the restaurant today, Oct. 11, 2023.
COLUMBUS, Ind. — One of Columbus’ well-known casual dining restaurants has gone out of business.
The closing of Johnny Carino’s Country Italian restaurant, which has operated at 870 Creekview Drive since March 2004, was revealed on social media by some of the restaurant’s 12 former employees.
The shutdown was also obvious Wednesday to those driving along 10th Street when they saw the restaurant’s furniture and equipment being loaded onto multiple U-Haul trucks.
When asked why the Columbus location was closing, former General Manager Quentin Smith says inflation has caused a number of landlords to raise rents on businesses like the restaurant.
“When the rent goes up and (declining) sales don’t match it, you can’t run a business that doesn’t make money,” Smith said.
In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic forced several restaurants across the country to close. Smith said he was named general manager just two weeks after the coronavirus forced health authorities to begin mandating social distancing regulations.
“We were running with a skeleton crew,” Smith recalled. “Honestly, I just think the virus affected everybody’s attitude about going out.”
Nevertheless, Smith says he’ll always remember Johnny Carino’s as a great place to work that was filled with good people.
“Yeah, it was fun,” he added.
Johnny Carino’s was founded in 1997 by Norman Abdallah and Creed Ford III, who collaborated as executives for the parent company of the Chili’s restaurant chain. They founded Fire Up, Inc. of Austin, Texas, which bought out the former Spageddies restaurant chain and rebranded them as Johnny Carino’s.
While the new restaurant chain experienced substantial growth over the next 17 years, the company began experiencing more than its share of challenges.
Fire Up, Inc. filed for bankruptcy in 2014, and again in 2016. The liquidation of several restaurants was mandated by the filings, which resulted in the number of Johnny Carino’s to shrink from 170 to only 37 last August, an article in ‘Nations Restaurant News’ states.
In its first bankruptcy, Ford blamed the weak casual dining atmosphere, low oil prices and higher than expect costs that he associated with the Affordable Care Act, according to news coverage about the bankruptcy.
Management also took some hits. In 2017, Abdallah left the corporation to become CEO of the Del Frisco’s Restaurant Group. One year later, Creed unexpectedly died of a heart attack at the age of 66.
