Empty Chairs At Empty Tables
Shawarma King was my coping mechanism during junior year. In the midst of what felt like living hell, I found an island of solace within the yellow walls and simple wooden chairs of this beautiful restaurant. Every Thursday, after starting the day with 10 a.m. class and ending at 6 p.m. with a lab section, my lab partner and I would make the walk from Whittaker to Melville, trying to defrag our minds from the tough week. The work seemed endless, and it was difficult to steer the conversation away from the rocky shores of lab reports and problem sets.
The moment we walked through the doors of Shawarma King, however, a blanket was placed over all of those worries. The only thing that mattered now was my hunger and the menu. Pouring over their entree list, it wasn’t possible to make a wrong choice, and with time I settled into comfortable habits. My bread and butter order was always the chicken shawarma with extra tahini sauce if we had time to sit down and eat. Otherwise, I opted for the sandwich as a quick pick up and go. Whatever I ended up buying, the first bite was always a moment of pure bliss where I could leave my to-do list and problem sets at the door, and simply immerse myself in a world of flavor. To be honest, the food is some of the best I’ve had, ever.
So when I learned at the beginning of this semester that Shawarma King had shut down, I was livid. This was a restaurant that had amazing food and service, and one which helped me avoid a complete mental breakdown on countless occasions. I could rely on the pita and hummus or shawarma sandwich to pull me through long nights spent at Olin or those days when I simply forgot to cook. The shuttering of Shawarma King really puts the entire Melville restaurant strip into glaring focus — this is just one of many closings that have occurred on this side street.
Most of the restaurants on Delmar Loop feel monolithic; their presence exuding an aura of permanence. Fitz’s, Blueberry Hill, Seoul Taco — all of these places have been around for a few years, and are common stops for lunch and dinner. The Melville side street on the other hand, has restaurants come and go like a pit stop. I can recall a Zippy Burger, 180 Fitness, Bing Bing, an Ethiopian restaurant, and Smoothie King calling that street home. All of those businesses ended up shutting down, being replaced by yet another pop up restaurant. In fact, the only one of the businesses on Melville that has remained through the past four years is Taj Mahal and Wong’s Wok (which closed and was replaced by Vegas Wok). This seems like an unusually high turnover rate, but I think the competitive nature of the restaurant business lies at the heart of the high turnover.
Because many restaurants on the loop are local fixtures, it becomes much more difficult to start a new restaurant near these venues due to the sheer draw of their brand power. There is charm in trying out a new restaurant, but I think the veteran reputation of Loop mainstays tend to outweigh this novelty.[su_pullquote align=”right”]This sheds light onto some of the explanation for the touch-and-go nature of those storefronts.[/su_pullquote]
Gordon Ramsay once said that packing a restaurant on Friday and Saturday comes naturally, but keeping it full on a Monday or Tuesday is the sure sign of a successful restaurant. My guess is that the Loop restaurants are thriving because they can keep themselves full all week. Given that Melville is a side street, it may be more difficult to draw traffic to those storefronts. If the rent on Melville is the same as rent on the Delmar, then budding restaurants face a formidable challenge. This difficulty is compounded by the fact that 30 percent of newly opened restaurants close within the first year, and sheds light onto some of the explanation for the touch-and-go nature of those storefronts.[su_pullquote align=”right”]Maybe that’s just how life on Melville goes.[/su_pullquote]
As I make the walk past Melville every morning for class, I am constantly reminded about the heavy loss that me, my friends, and the local food community were dealt with the closure of Shawarma King. Try as I might, I’m not able to point to a singular reason, a single person to blame for this travesty. Yet this is an unfortunate part of life and business. Sometimes even when the idea and execution is stellar, things just don’t pan out. In the case of Shawarma King, I think there were multiple factors at play, and now another restaurant will soon replace the storefront where it once stood. But maybe that’s just how life on Melville goes.[su_pullquote]I am constantly reminded about the heavy loss that me, my friends, and the local food community were dealt with the closure of Shawarma King.[/su_pullquote]
Akshay Thontakudi ‘19 studies in the School of Engineering & Applied Science. He can be reached at a.m.thontakudi@wustl.edu.