CLEVELAND HEIGHTS, Ohio — Less than a year after Nighttown made its long-awaited reopening in Cleveland Heights, the iconic restaurant and live music venue is closing its doors yet again.
Nighttown managing partner Gregg Levy announced on Wednesday that the restaurant's final day of operation will be on Sunday, Aug. 25.
"The management and ownership of Nighttown have made the difficult decision to close the restaurant effective August 25, 2024. While we enjoyed the journey of preserving the spirit of Nighttown and greatly improving and enhancing the underlying infrastructure and facilities, while attempting to usher in the new era of patrons, the challenges brought upon by delays, construction difficulties and unforeseen circumstances made it clear to us that it was time to pass the baton to a new stewardship," Levy wrote in a statement shared with 3News.
The restaurant, which first opened on Cedar Hill in 1965, closed in 2020 amid the COVID-19 pandemic. In January 2021, longtime Nighttown owner Brendan Ring sold the restaurant (and his entire Cedar Hill property) to Red Restaurant Group. Later that year, Levy told 3News' Russ Mitchell that redesign and planning was underway to allow Nighttown to reopen sometime in 2022.
But the project "experienced significant delays" for reasons "beyond the control" of Red, moving back the reopening of Nighttown until Nov. 6, 2023.
Now, the restaurant's future is once again uncertain.
"We are working with several interested parties in hopes of finding a new author to write the next chapter of this James Joyce script (Ulysses in Nighttown…); in the meantime, we will concentrate our efforts on our flagship fine dining restaurants, Red, the Steakhouse in downtown Cleveland and Red, the Steakhouse in Pinecrest. While we hope to find the next operator in due time, rest assure that many of the experiences, recipes and even staff from our time at Nighttown will be shared with our Red restaurants; we hope to see you there," Levy added.