Capital City Diner Is Closing With Hopes to Reformat

It's been a tough time these days for the Capital City Diner, especially since a Denny's recently cropped up nearby. And now there's some super sad news to take you into the weekend: the two-year-old diner has announced that this will be its very last weekend in service as you know it. Prince of Petworth reported rumors this morning of the shutter and owner Matt Ashburn confirmed these soon afterward on the restaurant's Facebook page, writing:

"Although we received positive response to our recent improvements, we also encountered rising costs, a declining economy, and a national chain 'diner' restaurant opening almost a stone's throw away. Now, we must refocus and reformat our restaurant to move forward."

Sad. But what about the silver lining of this reformatting? Eater reached out to Ashburn, who said he's not releasing information quite yet because things are in the works, but noted:

"Obviously it's a tough economy and it really didn't help with Denny's moving in next door. Long story short, the diner concept isn't working over here. There's a couple options that we're exploring."

The good news is there's still time to visit the Capital City Diner before it goes away. Ashburn says he made the announcement today in order to give customers time to come in and say goodbye, saying that "a lot of our customers are not just customers. They're our friends and our neighbors." And so the Capital City Diner will be open until 3 p.m. today and then over the weekend from 7 am until 6 pm. Says Ashburn: "It's obviously a really tough decision. It's something that we've been trying not to make. But it just comes down to it being feasible or not and it just isn't possible to continue."

· Capital City Diner [Facebook]

Capital City Diner [Photo: Yelp]