A Maryland-based restaurant chain that made a major expansion into Delaware in the past 20 years has almost completely gone back into its shell.
The Greene Turtle location in Newark closed for good on Saturday, right in the middle of Parents and Family Weekend at the University of Delaware, one of the biggest out-of-state draws of the year.
WDEL has learned that an email was sent to employees on Sunday morning alerting them of the closing of a restaurant that originally opened on South Main Street (Elkton Road) in December 2012, before moving into the Park N Shop Shopping Center.
It’s the latest closure for a chain that previously had locations in Brandywine Hundred, Lewes, and Rehoboth Beach, with a Middletown location having closed last November.
The locations in Dover and Churchmans Crossing both remain open.
The Green Turtle’s original restaurant in Ocean City, Maryland opened in 1976, before their owners expanded to Baltimore in 1986.
At the peak of its growth, the Greene Turtle was honored by Entrepreneur Magazine as the fastest-growing sports bar franchise in the nation, when they had about 30 locations in the Mid-Atlantic region.
The chain was acquired by private-equity group Stone-Goff Partners in 2015, when the concept had expanded to 41 locations.
Most of the remaining 23 current locations of the chain are in a footprint from Pittsburgh to the Washington, D.C. suburbs, although they did open a location in Tampa, Florida last year.
“The Original Greene Turtle” is now a separate entity, and they maintain both an Ocean City and West Ocean City bar.
Dining and Cooking