Fallston Diner closes its doors suddenly after financial troubles

Literally overnight, the Fallston Diner on Route 1 near Route 152 closed up shop earlier this month because of financial difficulties.

The Nov. 21 closing was sudden not only to the diner's customers, who had been coming to the establishment since it opened in 2008, but also to its employees and owner, Gina Hatzimarkos.

"It's the economy," Hatzimarkos said Tuesday. "We were struggling to keep it open. It was so hard." A Denny's previously operated on the property but closed in 2007.

According to the property's landlord, Patrick Hess of Operations Management Inc., the eviction process began in the end of September or beginning of October, though he wasn't sure of the exact date. Hatzimarkos said they didn't get the final word that they were being evicted until that day.

"I can't go into detail as to what was going on," she explained. She could say, though, that she and her fiancé, Juan Munoz, who was a partner at the restaurant as well as the chef, were trying to renegotiate the cost of rent with the landlord. "He wasn't willing to budge," she said.

The news was a shock to her, Hatzimarkos went on.

"If we knew ahead of time, we would have let the employees know, let the customers know," she said. When asked why the diner's closure was so sudden, Hess said, "I look at these as very private matters between [the company] and the tenant."

A few days after the eviction, Operations Management boarded doors and windows at the empty building and a "closed" sign was put up.

Since the diner didn't give its customers any notice, Hatzimarkos bought an ad in The Aegis Nov. 30 that read: "The Fallston Diner has closed due to [a] sudden turn of events," and directs people to Papadukies Place in White Marsh, also owned by Hatzimarkos and Munoz.

"We wanted to apologize to the customers," she kept repeating Tuesday.

No Fallston Diner employees are working at the new restaurant, Hatzimarkos added, but she hopes business picks up so she'll be able to re-hire them.

"If I could hire them, I would love to," she went on. "And right before the holidays. It's horrible."

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