The Prime Rib is having some work done, will close for two weeks

Don't anybody panic. No one's pulling up any leopard carpeting or taking down the Louis Icart prints.

The Prime Rib is closing from July 1-14 for some renovations, but most of them are in the kitchen. The changes "out front" will be mostly cosmetic, according to the restaurant's co-manager Brad Black, using the industry phrase for a restaurant's public areas.

The biggest change out front for the Mount Vernon-area restaurant will be to the ladies' room, which is getting a "long-overdue" makeover from Rita St. Clair Associates, and to the smaller dining room off to the side of the main dining room.

Some of the changes to this room are structural - it's getting a new ceiling - and others are cosmetic: There will be new sconces on the wall when the Prime Rib opens.

Another change to the small dining room is practical. The restaurant is installing pocket doors that will let them create a private dining space that will hold up to 30 people. Its primary use will be for business groups, and Black said it will primarily be used early in the week. It will be equipped for standard audio-visual needs.

There will be a few minor cosmetic changes to the main dining room. Some of black drapery will be replaced with gold, which according to Black, is the color they were before they were black.

"It's not like we're having a complete overhaul," Black said, "Nothing that you love will really change."

Neither Black nor the restaurant's other co-manager, John Klaus, could remember a closing at the Prime Rib as long as this one. The longest closing they could recall was during the blizzards of February 2010.

The Prime Rib will reopen on Monday, July 15.