Hill Restaurant Group Closes Restaurants – Issues Apology – Hopes to Reopen
By Larry Janezich
The following statement was posted this afternoon on the Hill Restaurant Group Homepage:
“To all our valued and loyal customers,
Due to the restrictions set forth by the Mayor’s Office, it has made it impossible for us to continue to stay open for business so we will be closing all of our restaurants to reevaluate our situation. We apologize for the post on district industry- it was not meant to be selfish. We just felt is was unfair for the Mayors office to mandate such hash (sic) restrictions without any notice or consultation with business owners. We reached out to the Mayor’s office to voice our concern on the implications that it would have on the restaurant industry in hopes that she would rethink and maybe come up with more tenable rules and regulations to protect the public and be able to continue to do business and have received no response. We, as a group, have gone to extreme measures to try to make our establishments as safe as possible. Hill Restaurant Group employs 150 people and we were already struggling to keep everyone employed and now with the new restrictions, this has become impossible. We do take the current situation very seriously and will try and reopen in the near future. We do hope this comes to an end as soon as possible and wish for the health and safety of everyone.”
Earlier, Tom Johnson, the managing partner of Hill Restaurant Group, told the Washington Post in regard to the restrictions placed on the industry, “I have to start letting people go. I don’t have the wherewithal to pay them,” Johnson said. “It’s literally going to put me out of business. I’m going to go bankrupt.”
The group comprises seven restaurants on or near Capitol Hill: Hawk ‘n’ Dove, Finn McCool’s, Lola’s, Orchid, Tortuga, Willie’s and Ophelia’s Fish House.
CAPITOL HILL CORNER 
I’ve lost my appetite for Hill Restaurant Group establishments.
He raises a good point about unemployment and bankruptcy that the Mayor needs to plan for. Perhaps the City Council can think about a better use for all that extra tax money it had and was going to use to make Metro free.
The whole conflict was taken out of context. The issue was pressure against smaller independently operated venues to force them to close by making impossible restrictions (no seats at a bar, really?) while permitting larger venues and chains to escape the effects. A complete shutdown is at least even handed and affects all equally not exempting those who donate to the Mayor.