Eastern Iowa Restaurant Has Officially Closed Its Doors

In some devastating news for the owners and patrons of this establishment, Rawlicious will be closing its doors for good. The owners of Rawlicious, located in the Newbo market in Cedar Rapids, made the announcement this past Wednesday (June-28) that the restaurant will be closed permanently, even though they'd like to remain in business.

Back in February, it was reported Rawlicious was supposedly going to be forced to close its doors, and sadly, 4 months later, that has come true. The restaurant will close, despite the owner's best efforts to try and work something out with the lease owners of the building they are located in.

What makes this story strange is that in the announcement on the Rawlicious Facebook page, the owners mention never missing a rent payment for years. After trying to negotiate for a new lease, they've been continuously denied. 

According to CBS Iowa, the CSPS, a nonprofit organization, which owns the building Rawlicious is located in, has a new tenant prepared to take over the space and decided to close down the Rawlicious restaurant.

Talk about a head-scratcher...I've never owned a building with tenants in it but I'm not sure I'd want to force people to leave who consistently pay their rent.

I suppose if you own the building, you have the right to pick and choose who you want to give leases to. This just seems like a strange decision to me. It will be interesting to see what/who takes over the space.

There has been a massive amount of support on social media for Rawlicious, which is one of the very few vegan restaurants in eastern Iowa. It'll be interesting to see what happens with Rawlicious next! Will they move to a new location? Are they done for good? Only time will tell.