On Tuesday, the owners of Raleigh’s Gateway Restaurant announced that the restaurant would be closing permanently. The post was met with hundreds of comments and an outpouring of community support. 

“On March 17, 2020 Gateway closed its doors temporarily in accordance with the COVID-19 Stay-At-Home Order,” owners Martina Brooks and Tom Rohweder wrote in a Facebook post. “Now, two months later, our world has forever changed. A reopening of restaurants is anticipated soon. Evaluating what the new normal is going to look like has been heartbreaking.” 

The old-school family restaurant, nestled in an unassuming shopping center off of Crabtree Boulevard, was opened by Hans Rohweder in 1985 and passed down to Rohweder’s daughter Martina Brooks and son Tom Rohweder in 2000, according to the post. The restaurant has remained in the family since, with a menu full of classic diner options—grits, hashbrowns, meatloaf, and fried chicken—that have made it a community gathering space. On Facebook, the restaurant bills itself as “Raleigh’s best kept secret.” 

The news comes amid a waves of restaurant closures, many of them in Raleigh—Ashley Christensen’s Chuck’s, Salisbury Street eateries Linus & Pepper’s and Virgil’s Tacos, Cuban and Argentinian eatery Oakwood Cafe on Edenton Street, and the Fernway Avenue location of Gonza Tacos and Tequila in Durham—as well as the news that restaurants will be allowed to open at a fifty-percent capacity after May 22, per Governor Roy Cooper’s order.

“Having worked tirelessly for years, we have thought long and hard about how to bring our team safely back to work,” the owners wrote. “The time has come to make a decision which will assure the well-being of our employees as well as our customers. With that in mind, we are at peace with our decision to close Gateway’s doors, knowing that new doors will open for all of us.” 

Contact deputy arts and culture editor Sarah Edwards at [email protected].

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Sarah Edwards is culture editor of the INDY, covering cultural institutions and the arts in the Triangle. She joined the staff in 2019 and assumed her current role in 2020.