Novelli’s sudden closure and acknowledging our stages of grief | Pamela’s Food Service Diary

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — Having owned a restaurant and been an employer since almost right out of college, I can empathize with the highs and lows of proprietorship. Having written about the industry for 18 years after that food service career, it always stuns me on how people generally handle a business closure. Take Novelli’s, for instance, a pork store that shut suddenly after nearly 50 years.

Yes, it’s shocking. And I’m here for you for a little bit of therapy — although sometimes I could use a soothing voice myself when it comes to closures like this.

It’s one thing to read about a place closing on social media. But just so you completely understand: it’s a painful thing to interview an owner who’s just walked away from his or her livelihood. And sometimes they cannot verbalize why they are shutting down — because the decision to close is often a very complex one. Also, they often don’t realize the implications of what’s to come between emotions and the length of time it takes to truly pack it in. Turning off the lights doesn’t mean everything is buttoned up and over in one day.

Together, we are going through the collective stages of grief, at least with Novelli’s. And there are a lot more “out of business” stories to write going forward.

So for now I’m going to break it all down for you in classic ‎Elisabeth Kübler-Ross style. We’re talking five steps here — denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. Let’s walk through it together.

Denial.

“Say it ain’t so!” said one Novelli’s fan from Florida. He was just one of dozens of readers who reached out to say from afar, “Even after moving, my trips back North were always marked by a pilgrimage to Novelli’s where I loaded up on my favorite Italian delights.”

The operative word is “afar.”…