Four months after they first announced plans to close Jack's Original Barbecue, the owners have shut the doors on one of Tucson's longest running barbecue restaurants.
Longtime Jack's owners the Boccardo family served their final barbecue dinners and sandwiches last Saturday.
Owner Gary Boccardo said he is keeping employees on the payroll through August to help clean the 3,000-square-foot building so that it can either be leased to another restaurant operator or sold.
“We knew in the beginning that we didn’t have any money and we were entering the worst time of the year, the summer, with no money,” he said. “Nobody plans for a five-year recession. We had enough money to ride out two or three years. ... We probably should have closed it a long time ago.”
Boccardo said he and his father and brother — who have owned the restaurant for 15 years — decided to call it quits once they realized they had just enough money left to pay off their suppliers.
See the full story in Thursday's Caliente.
