Sign of the Beefcarver closes its last restaurant in Royal Oak
The Michigan carvery chain shuts its original Woodward Avenue dining room on 25 October, blaming record roast beef prices and losses that never recovered after the pandemic.
Sign of the Beefcarver, the roast beef chain that fed metro Detroit for almost seven decades, will close its last restaurant, the original on Woodward Avenue in Royal Oak, Michigan, on Sunday 25 October.
The owners announced the decision in a Facebook post on Sunday 18 October. They cited the rising cost of food, roast beef above all, and losses that have built up since the pandemic. "We can no longer absorb the excessive costs of operating and still offer our customers a desirable value proposition," the post said, as quoted by CBS Detroit.
Jay Joliat, the founder's son, who has run the restaurant since 1988, told the Detroit Free Press that beef is at an all-time high and that labour and energy bills have climbed too. FOX 2 Detroit and WXYZ reported the same reasons; according to WXYZ, the owners also pointed to the COVID-19 shutdown and what they called onerous government policies.
A restaurant named after roast beef has little room to escape its price.
Sign of the Beefcarver and its 1957 dining room
Jack Joliat and Bob LaJoie opened the Royal Oak restaurant at 27400 Woodward Avenue in 1957, according to CBS Detroit, which cites the Royal Oak Historical Society. The menu was built around roast beef, the dish the owners themselves describe as the restaurant's namesake, served at prices pitched at families rather than expense accounts.
The concept spread across the suburbs. CBS Detroit counts seven more Beefcarvers in metro Detroit by 1972; the Free Press puts the total at more than a dozen over the years and says the chain once employed more than 1,000 people. One by one, they closed. The Dearborn branch on Michigan Avenue shut in June 2018 after more than 50 years, which left Royal Oak as the only survivor.
What happens to the Woodward Avenue building
The family owns the building and is weighing what to do with it, the Free Press reported; no buyer or new use has been announced. The number of staff affected has not been disclosed. In their post, the owners asked regulars to leave the team a tip, offer them a job or support them in any other way during the final week.
The closure shows how exposed a single-product menu is to one commodity: a restaurant named after roast beef has little room to change the plate when the price of the cut rises. The wider Detroit dining scene is moving in another direction, with the region now covered by the Michelin Guide Great Lakes, which picked Detroit for its first gala.
The doors on Woodward Avenue close for good on 25 October, 69 years after they first opened.
