John Jacob’s Grill closes its doors on Astoria waterfront

Published 4:00 pm Thursday, January 31, 2008

It was a restaurant situated in a primo spot on the downtown riverfront in Astoria, with fabulous views all around. If “location, location, location” was any indicator, this eatery seemed to have all the ingredients for surefire success.

But success was evidently not in the cards for John Jacob’s Waterfront Grill, located on the waterfront at Pier 11. After opening about a year ago, patrons last month found a handwritten sign on the door that began, “Due to unfortunate circumstances “

Building owner Mark Popkin said the restaurant’s Portland owners overextended themselves trying to do other projects in addition to John Jacob’s.

“They got behind in the rent with me and at some point I was not able to carry it anymore,” he said. “The restaurant itself was doing fairly well, but they were not giving it the support it needed.”

John Jacob’s Waterfront Grill is owned by N.W. Hayden Enterprises. The company has a history of involvement in Astoria: in 2005, N.W. Hayden sought approval from the Port of Astoria to operate the proposed convention center.

A Portland Business Journal article from May 2007 noted the company’s acquisition of $1.175 million in funding to finance “several local restaurant projects,” and identified the company as a “restaurant ownership firm” that had opened 175 eateries over the course of 30 years.

An online company profile posted by bizjournals.com identifies company executives, including CEO Bill Hayden and President Richard Arthur. The two are also mentioned in the minutes of a 2004 Astoria City Council meeting in which John Jacob’s Waterfront Grill received approval for a restaurant liquor license.

However, as of sometime in January both the John Jacob Grill and NW Hayden Enterprises Web sites no longer were available on the Internet. Calls to the company headquarters in Tualatin were not returned.

Mike Willock, who was John Jacob’s general manager when the restaurant closed, thinks a variety of factors played a role in the demise of the restaurant. He said last November he was told by the corporate office that the company’s largest financial backer pulled out.

“That seemed to be when things started to unravel,” Willock said.

Outside forces also came into play for the ailing restaurant.

“We were hit by the December storm, and then an economic slowdown, and people were hanging on to their wallets, he said. “If you think about how much can go wrong in a two month period, we pretty much got it all.”

Willock said he’s talked to other area restaurant owners, and hears they are seeing some of the worst sales numbers in years.

“But we were the new kid on the block; established restaurants can weather the ups and downs of the economy a bit better than a startup,” he said.

Willock believes the restaurant might have been successful over time, despite the loss of financial support, if some tools had been in place from the start.

“I had to run my own numbers because I was never given a P&L statement [profit and loss], marketing budget or overall annual budget for operations, essentially keeping us from getting a green light to make the restaurant successful,” he said.

Despite the fact that Willock unexpectedly found himself out of work, he’s optimistic about finding a job in the hospitality business.

“I’m out there looking, and on the bright side, I will come to a new employer with a great education,” he said

The closing of John Jacob’s leaves Rollin’ Thunder BBQ as the sole tenant in the Pier 11 building as of the end of January.

Another former tenant, Attorney Blair Henninsgaard recently moved his office from the top floor of the Pier 11 building to the Spexarth building in downtown Astoria, after December’s storm severely damaged his riverfront office.

But with the building’s great location, vacancies there likely won’t last long.

Popkin said he’s feeling encouraged, and has had numerous inquiries from prospective tenants, including another restaurant, along with several health practitioners who would like to have offices at the waterfront location.