PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — After 17 years in downtown Portland, Buffalo Wild Wings closed their doors for the final time.
The sports bar at SW 4th and Morrison closed Thursday. Bar officials said the City of Portland gave them no choice but to close after they’ve sought increased security for employees and customers for 4 years. And they said the city is not interested in discussing the problems with them.
The City of Portland owns the building Buffalo Wild Wings is in. But the city just ended their lease.
Wray Hutchinson, the president of World Wide Wings and the owner of this franchise location, told NewsNation’s affiliate KOIN that this spot faced challenges other locations didn’t — civil unrest, COVID closures and continuous crime. He said he requested more security from the city due to issuse at the attached parking garage.
But instead, the city closed the garage.
That, Hutchinson said, led to a 70% drop in business.
Mayor Ted Wheeler’s office told KOIN in a statement that Buffalo Wild Wings has not been paying their rent while the city has worked to carry out revitalization efforts.
Huthchinson said he withheld rent since August in an effort to hold his landlord — the City of Portland — accountable. Instead, he was served a 2-week notice to vacate, ending their hope of helping revitalize downtown.
The reason they withheld rent, he said, is “because it’s the only leverage a tenant has when a landlord is not fulfilling their responsibility.”
“So we hung in there naively under the assumption that that’s where the city would start and we could weather the storm here,” Hutchinson said. “And again, it’s cost us hundreds of thousands of dollars for that belief only to have the city turn around and go, ‘Yeah, we’re done. We’re done talking to you.'”
He said something has to change.
“And I thought we were going to be a part of that. I really did. I thought we were just kind of a fun environment in the right place, and I thought we could be part of it. And now they’re just in, well, they’re a bad tenant. They didn’t pay their rent, blah, blah, blah. That’s not what happened here,” he told KOIN.
All but 4 of the downtown Buffalo Wild Wings employees will go to work at his other locations in the metro.
The city hopes to find a new business to rent the space.
Hutchinson is frustrated.
“It’s sad, it’s frustrating, it’s infuriating. But no, I mean, when we opened this location, it was the center of the universe. On a Friday night before a Blazer game, we had a UFC fight. There were literally people standing on the sidewalks watching the fight, and through our windows, it was the place to be what energy and excitement we brought, and it was just a place for people in the Portland community to gather and celebrate our teams.”