The owner of two businesses in Culver says it’s an exciting, but also a sad time.
George Pesek, owner of Corndance Cafe and Evil Czech Brewery in Culver, announced to employees on Thursday that both locations would be closing before the end of September. Pesek says he opened similar locations in Mishawaka, the demand for which has been relatively large compared to Culver.
Pesek says it was a matter of dollars and cents.
“It’s kind of the bittersweet thing,” says Pesek. “That huge success in Mishawaka came with the price tag of a lot of my energy and obviously time that goes into them. That’s much less time that I can spend in Culver.”
Pesek says he and his family have been involved with the Culver community for the past 16 years.
Operation of all four business locations was considered unsustainable as far as Pesek was concerned. He says it was simply time to consolidate operations to Mishawaka. The Culver locations will close their doors on September 27th.
Pesek says changes in his businesses is simply growing pains.
“It was a very tough day for me to announce to the employees that we’re going to be closing,” says Pesek. “It was definitely very emotional and a very sad day. But I’m glad it’s over. I feel good about it. We always took care of our employees and we will continue to do that.”
Employees of the Culver locations were offered jobs at the Mishawaka restaurants. Eight employees have accepted the offer. The remaining employees will be offered severance packages.
