Sarasota BBQ Restaurant Permanently Closing Months After Reopening

SARASOTA, FL — Less than a year after reopening in Sarasota, Nancy’s Bar-B-Q is permanently closing its doors Saturday, the restaurant wrote in a Facebook post.

Nancy’s launched in downtown Sarasota in 2011. The barbecue eatery relocated to Lakewood Ranch in 2011 before moving to the Lorraine Corners shopping centerin the same area in 2019, according to the Bradenton Herald-Tribune.

The restaurant moved back to Sarasota this summer, opening in the Rosemary District at 1525 Fourth Street in August.

Now, owner Nancy Krohngold is closing the business for good.

“Please accept my heartfelt thank you for supporting a local BBQ odyssey that began in 2006,” she wrote in a Facebook post. “It has been the pleasure and honor of my life to meet and cook for you!”

Krohngold told the Sarasota Herald-Tribune that when she was unable to renew her lease in Lakewood Ranch, she was eager “to return to our roots and our original — and loyal — customer base in downtown Sarasota.”

She added, "I confess that I thought reopening in downtown Sarasota would be a home run, but that's not how it's played out. Call it what you will: Hubris, or wearing rose-colored glasses, or wishful thinking. So many folks have congratulated us on the move and thanked us for returning to downtown, but their enthusiasm is not translating into enough foot traffic through the doors to keep us going."

The restaurant is open Friday and Saturday, 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.

Krohngold warns that because of its impending closure, the restaurant might sell out of some items earlier in the day than usual.

“Really hate to see you leave. The new place was so nice, and you are such a positive energy in the community,” one Facebook follower wrote in response to the news of Nancy’s closure.

Another wrote, “You just came back to our area. So sad.”

Krohngold is reportedly considering continuing her catering business once the brick-and-mortar location closes.