Days shy of three months after taking back her troubled Foothills restaurant The Abbey, Sandy Ford is throwing in the towel.
The restaurant’s last day was Sunday. Ford informed her staff on Monday and hosted a final staff dinner Tuesday before announcing the closing in a Facebook posting Wednesday afternoon.
Ford said she is exploring options to sell the restaurant’s assets to another operator. The proceeds would go to the restaurant’s 5-month-old bankruptcy.
In her Facebook posting, Ford thanked “Tucson for embracing our restaurant and being so supportive for the past four years.”
She and her now former husband, Brian Metzger, opened The Abbey at 6960 E. Sunrise Drive in November 2010, as the American comfort food sister to their northwest-side restaurant Jax Kitchen. The Abbey was named after their daughter Abigale; Jax, which Metzger closed in January, took its name from their son Jackson.
Ford got custody of The Abbey in July as part of her divorce settlement with Metzger, whose company Metzger Family Restaurants operates Gio Taco downtown and Poppy’s Kitchen at La Paloma Resort. The Abbey had just come through a series of legal entanglements that included Metzger filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in early May.
Ford said the bankruptcy proved more challenging than she had anticipated.
“I had hoped for a better outcome when I took over ... but unfortunately, too much damage had been done,” she said. “I just couldn’t move forward.”
