By Nicole June
CLARKSVILLE, Tenn. (CLARKSVILLENOW) – The Clarksville Demos’ restaurant, which has other locations throughout Middle TN, is closing.
ClarksvilleNow.com reached out to owner and CEO Peter Demos, who confirmed that the restaurant is now closed as os Friday, October 27.
Information about the Clarksville location at 120 S. Hampton Place has been removed from the company’s website.
The Clarksville location opened less than a year ago in November of 2016.
Peter Demos said the Clarksville restaurant has been under-performing since it opened. The location was drawing in about 25 percent fewer customers than the next lowest performing store.
Demos said none of the other restaurants in Middle TN will be impacted.
“We decided to go ahead and close it because it didn’t seem like we were going to be doing much more,” Demos said. “We’re a family business. It hurts any time we have to make any decision that’s detrimental to any of our employees. This is not easy and it’s quite painful.”
Demos said some employees were given two weeks of severance pay, while others were given one week. He said the employees were given severance pay in lieu of additional notice so they would not have to search for jobs while simultaneously working at Demos’.
“It’s very unusual for restaurants to give severance pay to hourly employees,” Demos said.
Employees also have the option of transferring to another Demos’ location. According to the Demos’ website, the restaurant has locations in Murfreesboro, Henderson, Nashville, and Lebanon.
Two employees who wish to remain anonymous contacted ClarksvilleNow.com Friday morning about the closure.
“They just called the employees this morning letting everyone know that the restaurant is now closed and everyone is out of a job with no warning,” one employee said.
Another employee in management said a call was made Friday morning by the human resources department about the closure.
“They closed our store over night with out any warning or notice. They are only offering two weeks of severance pay or to transfer to another location. The closest location is Nashville, the rest are at least an hour from Clarksville,” the employee said. “As you can imagine many of us are highly upset. The pay isn’t enough for most people to drive and most of us have no desire to commute to Nashville or further. The holidays are coming up and now about 50 or so people are out of work and will be struggling to find other jobs.”
A search for Demos’ of Clarksville on Google showed that the restaurant is listed as ‘permanently closed’ and has been removed from other listings.
