It’s never easy saying goodbye in the restaurant business.
Unfortunately, for 'O' Bar & Grill owner Patrick Jean, that day of reckoning came on Easter Sunday, March 27, when he closed his doors for good.
“All business decisions are difficult ones to make,” he told The Times Tuesday afternoon.
“I told my loyal customers that it was for the best — that it was time to move on,” he added. “Now I can relax a little bit and spend some time with my family.”
Jean said the final week was exceptionally difficult, with customers coming in to give him and his staff a final hug goodbye after they had served the Trumbull community strong for seven years.
Besides saying goodbye to customers, the owner acknowledged that the most difficult part of the process was stepping away from the restaurant business after all this time.
“The life of a restaurant has been a part of my life since I was 17 years old,” he said. “It’s been a second love, and I learned a lot from being involved in all types of different situations.”
In the end, though, Jean said, he wanted to take the final moments to remember his customers and serving the community as a whole.
“You need customers in to stay in business and ours were always great to us,” Jean recalled. “I was happy to make them happy as much as I possibly could.
“We tried to provide the best food and the best service to our customers,” he said of bringing satisfaction to his customers over the years. “It’s the same with every restaurant in the world — ours was no different.”