NuLu restaurant's closure leaves employees frustrated, worried before holidays

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- A restaurant in NuLu is closing its doors after being in business for almost two years.

Everyday Kitchen announced Wednesday on Facebook its plan to close permanently. The restaurant, located on East Market Street, will close Friday to the public. Its final day will be Saturday for a private event.

The Everyday Kitchen Café will also close its doors this week.

"We are exceedingly grateful to our team members who worked tirelessly to serve you great food and creative drinks," Everyday Kitchen posted on Facebook.

The sudden closure shocked frequent diners, but also employees who said they were notified by their general manager on Tuesday, an hour before opening its doors.

"It was honestly incredibly upsetting," said server Maddie Karcher. "It was fearful."

Everyday Kitchen is part of the Lodgic Everyday Community. Its overall parent company is a nonprofit called Mooseheart.

According to Mooseheart's website, the nonprofit is a "residential child care facility, located on a 1,000-acre campus 38 miles west of Chicago. The Child City is a home for children and teens in need, from infancy through high school."

Restaurant workers said Mooseheart funds the restaurant, but the restaurant's profits circle back to Mooseheart. Employees said all they know is that Mooseheart decided to pull its funding.

"I don't really understand it," Karcher said. "I'm sure it has something to do with profits at the end of the day but we weren't really given any of that information."

"I don't know what's happening with them or not, but it does make us feel like we were just kind of kicked to the curb a little bit," bar manager Maggie Luckett said.

While employees were told Tuesday about the closure, some employees received an official letter of termination on Wednesday.

"We had $20,000 worth of events the next month that they canceled, there was a bridal party that has been planned since February that they canceled," said Karcher. "It just begs the question, why couldn't they stay there another month, give the workers time, give everybody that last chunk of change during the holidays, before moving on."

Luckett said the lack of notice of the closure goes against the nonprofit's mission to support single mothers and children.

"I have two kids and a life, and just that was my initial thought was, how am I going to support myself? How the whole staff was going to support themselves," Luckett said.

"I immediately thought of all of the employees here who have families, who have children, young kids, who, they're not gonna see the same Christmas, you know, there may not be Christmas," Karcher said. "They may have housing insecurity. They have food insecurity. We don't know what's going to happen because it is so difficult to get rehired in the service industry during the holiday period.”

Everyday Kitchen employees said Mooseheart will also close its Lodgic Kids camp, co-working space and event space at a later date.

The Lodgic Everyday Community entities rents out its space in the office building on East Market Street.

Everyday Kitchen in Champaign, Illinois, also announced its closure on Facebook Wednesday.

Everyday Kitchen in Madison, Wisconsin, said in comment on a Facebook post it continues to be open for business.

WDRB News reached out to Mooseheart for comment, but did not hear back.

Luckett and Karcher said in the restaurant's final days, they would just like to see customers stop by and show their support.

"Just come out and support us for the next couple days and, if you can, also support all your local industry people because this happens more often than not," Luckett said.

While employees said Wednesday that only some full-time workers would receive severance, a restaurant manager said Thursday that full-time employees' severance would vary based on their salaries, and that part-time employees would get the same severance across the board.

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