A couple of Oklahoma City metro-area businesses took to Facebook recently to highlight the severity of struggles facing local business owners in the restaurant and bar industry with posts about impending possible closures.
Owners of both The Pump bar, 2425 N Walker Ave. in OKC, and The Crimson Melt, 2100 N Eastern Ave. in Moore, made Facebook posts recounting difficult situations for their businesses.
The Pump’s owners told of a dire situation, having only enough product for a few final days, while the Crimson Melt asked for community to support to avoid closure.
According to the post made Saturday on Facebook by The Pump, owners Ian and Hailey McDermid are looking for potential partners or investors to keep the bar from closing. The Pump, located in a former fueling station, has been serving the Uptown 23rd, Paseo Arts and surrounding communities for 10 years.
In a follow-up post, The Pump thanked supporters for showing up Saturday night at the bar in support of the staff.
Meanwhile, The Crimson Melt — a newer restaurant born out of owner Ashontay Owens’ desire to continue serving his community and other first responders after retiring from service as a military fire captain — also wrote about hard times facing local restaurants on Facebook.
Owens asked the community to step up to support his restaurant and others to prevent the closing of more local businesses.
According to comments on The Crimson Melt’s post, the restaurant is not planning to close at this time, but does need continued and increased traffic to sustain its operations. The restaurant replied to several commenters that it was working on logistics relating to its location and was “hopefully announcing something soon.”
Other local businesses, like The Ice Creamatory, 1200 12th Ave. SE, Suite 106 in Norman, also commented on the post, stating they’d also seen a recent decline in business.
“We’re with you guys! Since November 1st complete drop off we’ll make it through,” wrote The Ice Creamatory.
The Crimson Melt replied to The Ice Creamatory offering encouragement and said fellow local restaurant Oklahoma Smoke BBQ “have been talking about getting together with some of the other local restauranteurs and establishing a framework of support.”
This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: The Pump bar, The Crimson Melt highlighted need for holiday customers