Kelvin And Co. Closes Downtown Location Only
The restaurant and eating landscape of Kalamazoo continues to change and evolve, as Kelvin and Company has closed its downtown location and consolidated to their new location on West Main, near Drake Road.
According to MLive, owner-chef Mark Nieuwenhuis blames downtown construction for a lack of foot traffic past his location at 232 East Michigan Ave. Construction on the new high-rise building at Michigan and Rose has been underway for several years. However, numerous road construction projects around downtown, especially in 2018, have made getting around the downtown business area difficult, exampled by this past week's removal of a crane, creating long traffic lines on eastbound Michigan Avenue.
Kelvin and Co.downtown was only open for about 20 months, opening on the final day of March, 2017. Then, in November of 2017, burst water pipes during a second floor remodeling project shut the business down for almost two months. Nieuwenhuis could easily say "if it weren't for bad luck...".
The article quotes him as saying his West Main location was doing in one day what the downtown location was doing in a week.
In addition, a new competitor, Dickey's, has opened on Stadium Drive, in addition to Barrett's Smokehouse.