A third Spanish Springs restaurant has closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the downturn in activity in the immensely troubled town square, which is likely to soon be home to multiple apartment units.
Demshar’s locked its doors Thursday and left a sign on the door telling customers of the closure. It said the eatery was temporarily closing due to “slow business” because of the virus. It also cited the closure of the Sharon L. Morse Performing Arts Center and the “town square,” presumably meaning the nightly entertainment that has been suspended since March.
“It is difficult to encourage guests to visit Spanish Springs,” the sign reads. It also states that none of the restaurant’s employees have been exposed to the virus and ends with, “Hope to see you soon.”
The sign was posted by owners Dennis and Edie Demshar, who live in The Villages. They recently received between $150,000 to $350,000 in COVID-19 relief – money that was designated as a “forgivable” loan issued through the Small Business Administration. The money was obtained through Citizens First Bank.
The Demshars opened the restaurant in May 2017 – it had been shuttered for more than a year – after owning “a bunch of Honey Baked Hams,” including the one in Lady Lake at Village Crossroads.
“Our dream was a full-service restaurant, what I call upscale casual,” Edie Demshar said during the grand-opening celebration. “A place where people can come in for a special dinner but be comfortable. We hope when people come here for dinner, they feel like they have been to our home.”
The building that houses Demshar’s originally opened in Spanish Springs Town Square as Augustine’s and was owned by The Villages. It offered Italian food and a highly popular salad with breadsticks. At the time, many Villagers viewed it as a blatant rip-off of Olive Garden and would even joke about it when dining at the popular eatery, which also included the Villages-owned Spanish Springs Brewing Co. and a connecting door into the Bichara Bakery where Dunkin’ Donuts is now located.
Since that time, the building has housed a variety of failed restaurants, including one that attempted to remain with the theme of Italian food but went away fairly quickly and another that failed with a New-Orleans themed menu. Prior to the opening of Demshar’s, the eatery had been named Luigino’s and had shut its doors in October 2015.
Demshar’s became the second Spanish Springs eatery to shut down on Thursday. Surprised customers and employees found a sign hanging on the door of TooJay’s Deli on the other side of town square announcing that it was closing for good. The restaurant had been a staple in Spanish Springs for about 15 years but a corporate spokesperson said Thursday that it was a victim of the COVID-19 crisis. The closure followed an announcement in April by TooJay’s that it was filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection because of the pandemic.
In May, the beloved Katie Belle’s restaurant – named for Villages Founder Harold Schwartz’s mother and originally drawn on a napkin by late Villages Developer H. Gary Morse – also locked its doors. Villages Operations Manager Ryan McCabe called the closure a “very difficult decision to make” and at the time, it was the most prominent supposed victim of the COVID-19 pandemic in the local area.
Clearly, the three restaurant closures don’t bode well for the merchants in Spanish Springs Town Square nor the Villages residents in the northern end of the mega-retirement community who frequent the area. The town square is going through a tumultuous time, with The Villages Developer making moves to inundate the area with apartments.
The Developer has cited a lack of commercial demand in Spanish Springs as the reason for wanting to convert business-oriented square footage into those apartments. The Lady Lake Planning and Zoning Board will hear the Developer’s proposal on Monday, Sept. 14, to add “multi-family” zoning as an allowable use in the entire downtown area.
The Developer already had announced plans to convert Katie Belle’s into apartments – a move that raised the hackles of many Villagers and caused them to question the reasons behind the closure – as well as the nearby former site of the Hacienda Hills Country Club. The latest proposal now indicates that second-story space at Spanish Springs Town Square buildings will house apartments – a fact that has left many residents upset about the questionable future of their beloved town square.
The closures also raise questions about the future of other eateries and businesses in Spanish Springs, which clearly has seen a reduction in foot traffic amid the pandemic – a reduction that likely will be even worse once apartments replace businesses. Also, in addition to town square entertainment being suspended and the Sharon being closed, the Rialto Theatre has been shuttered for months as part of a renovation project.
