A UC Riverside hangout, the Getaway Cafe, is closing its doors after nearly three decades.
Announcements that owner Shahram Sabbagh would close the popular bar and restaurant permanently on Tuesday night were made on the business’s Instagram site.
The Getaway Cafe, located on Canyon Crest Drive in Riverside, was known for its famous pizzas and became a favorite place for students to relieve stress and build friendships.
A video posted by longtime customer trevlias on Instagram showed Sabbagh serving customers in his welcoming business. Sabbagh told the poster that he would mostly miss the students and his customers. “They made my commute worth it every day,” the owner told trevlias.
The cafe was forced to close after the University increased its rent and added the cost of power as an additional expense, the Press Enterprise reported. Sabbagh said he was also never fully able to recover from the pandemic in 2020.
“For two and a half years, the school was shut down, and when the school came back on it was all online. So we had a hard time recovering what we lost,” Sabbagh told the newspaper.
The Getaway Cafe served the campus community for 28 years and “stood as a small business success story built on hard work, heart, and community connection,” a Change.org petition that had hoped to keep the cafe open stated.
The post Popular UC Riverside hangout ‘Getaway Cafe’ closes after 28 years appeared first on KTLA.
