Another restaurant has closed at Harborplace, becoming the third in the past year.
Big Kahuna Cantina, a Mexican- and Polynesian-style restaurant owned by Washington-based Capital Restaurant Concepts, closed Aug. 10.
Elizabeth Scott, spokeswoman for Capital Restaurant Concepts, couldn’t comment Monday on why the location closed.
“It was just a business decision made by the company,” Scott said.
Capital Restaurant Concepts operates six different types of restaurants at nine locations in Baltimore, Washington, D.C., and Reston, Va. The company doesn’t run any other Big Kahuna Cantina locations.
The company also runs J. Paul’s, a saloon-style restaurant with traditional American cuisine, next to Big Kahuna’s location in Harborplace.
On its Web site, Capital Restaurant Concepts touts J. Paul’s as its most successful restaurant in terms of food and drink sales volume.
Retail and restaurant vacancies have begun to pile up at Harborplace in recent months.
Tony Casalena, managing director of commercial real estate firm Sperry Van Ness’ Baltimore office, said businesses located in the Inner Harbor have to pay “pretty significant” waterfront rental rates.
General Growth Properties, owner of Harborplace, doesn’t release rental rates or vacancy rates for its properties and handles leasing activity in-house, said Carmel Gambacorta, Harborplace’s marketing director.
“Leasing is an ongoing effort,” Gambacorta said. “We’re always looking for potential tenants to fill the spaces available.”
Restaurant operators across the country are battling a challenging economic environment, as owners reported a decrease in same-store sales and customer traffic in June from the year before, according to data from the National Restaurant Association.
“A record 29 percent of restaurant operators said the economy is the No. 1 challenge facing their business, while 22 percent identified food costs as their top challenge,” said Hudson Riehle, senior vice president of research for the association.
The closure of Big Kahuna Cantina happens less than two months after California Pizza Kitchen shuttered its Harborplace location.
California Pizza Kitchen had operated at Pratt Street Pavilion in Harborplace for 10 years and closed June 29 after company executives chose not to renew its lease.
Capitol City Brewing Co. also closed its doors in the Light Street Pavilion last year, and the space is still vacant.
[email protected]
