A Park City councilor on Thursday honored a Main Street business that recently shuttered, the second time she has delivered comments about the loss of a business on the street in a month.
Tana Toly is part of the family that has long owned Red Banjo Pizza on Main Street, and she has an extensive background with issues related to the shopping, dining and entertainment strip. Toly made the comments about the Top of Main Brew Pub during this week’s City Council meeting. The elected officials were not scheduled to address issues related to Main Street, and the others did not respond to Toly’s comments in any detail.
Toly’s comments were brief, but they were notable after the closure of two long-established businesses in quick succession.
The Top of Main Brew Pub permanently closed after 37 years. It was known as the Wasatch Brew Pub for most of the time it was in operation. Main Street Pizza & Noodle closed just weeks earlier after being a fixture since 1990. The brew pub helped anchor the southern end of Main Street while the pizza and noodle restaurant occupied a high-profile location toward the middle of the street. They were among the largest restaurant spaces on Main Street.
“I didn’t think that within one month I would be talking about two longtime businesses on Main Street closing after many, many years. So, as it’s been reported this last week, the Top of Main, or formerly Wasatch Brew Pub, is closing its doors,” Toly said.
She described Greg Schirf, who founded the Schirf Brewing Company that held the brew pub for decades, as being “an old family friend.”
Toly briefly spoke about the history of the brew pub location, describing that Park City leaders in the 1980s wanted something accomplished toward the southern end of Main Street. The Park City economy of that era did not enjoy the strength it has displayed in the decades since.
“At the time, Main Street was a lot of boarded-up buildings. So they said we’ll sell it to you at half of what the assessed value was,” she said.
Schirf sold the brewery to an investment group a decade ago but retained the building where the brew pub was located. He recently reached an agreement to sell that building to a group from New York. Schirf has said Top of Main Brew Pub is no longer the tenant.
“I just wanted to pay my respects to Greg. Such a great guy. Such a great family,” Toly said, acknowledging the topic was an emotional one for her.
Both the Top of Main Brew Pub and Main Street Pizza & Noodle drew crowds during the busy tourism seasons. They were seen as alternatives to the higher-priced, fine-dining options on Main Street and were popular with families.
Main Street Pizza & Noodle, at the time of the closure, estimated the restaurant served upward of 150,000 people per year and more than 5 million meals in total since it opened. The Wasatch Brew Pub, which became the Top of Main Brew Pub, long had a role in the tourism industry’s work to dispel the notion that alcohol is not widely available in Utah.
“It’s just so hard to keep seeing businesses that have been there for decades close, especially family-friendly ones,” Toly said.
In her earlier comments about Main Street Pizza & Noodle, also delivered during a City Council meeting, Toly said Main Street “is not an easy place for a pizza restaurant to survive” and that the restaurant had been “an affordable place for people to eat for 35 years.”