After 26 years of serving Franklin Street diners, Pepper’s Pizza will close its doors tonight for good.
The restaurant, which opened in 1987 and moved to its current location at 107 E. Franklin St. seven years ago, has faced declining business and increased competition vying for student customers.
Owner David “Pepper” Harvey said he made the decision to close after difficulties paying off a loan.
“I had a bank loan that I haven’t been able to pay, and the bank’s coming and foreclosing on my equipment,” Harvey said. “This morning, they called and said sometime this week they’re going to close.”
Harvey said Pepper’s has struggled to bring in customers from UNC in recent years. Where in the past students made up a large part of the restaurant’s customer base, he said expanded on-campus dining options have hurt local restaurants.
“Since Aramark took over the food service over on campus, they pretty much locked up the people on campus,” he said. “They shortened the lunch break so the kids don’t have a chance to leave and opened all those new cafeterias and put those franchises on campus. Lunch is the biggest thing where we’ve lost our business — we probably do $20,000 less a month in lunch than we were doing three years ago.”
Yolanda Leslee, a waitress at Pepper’s, moved to Chapel Hill from New Jersey two months ago after losing her home in Hurricane Sandy. She said she was grateful to find a job at Pepper’s soon after.
“When I went looking for a job up and down Franklin Street, this is the last place I came in,” she said. “I was like, ‘It would be just too good to be true to get a job at Pepper’s.’ And I came in and they hired me, and then a month later …”
Leslee and Harvey both said they were concerned about finding jobs after the closure.
