Sticky Fingers will “come back strong” following the closure of several of the Mount Pleasant-based barbecue chain’s 11 locations, its chief operating officer pledged.
“We’re saving the brand,” Alex Daunter said, citing the financial toll of the coronavirus as the reason for slimming the company’s portfolio.
“We have every intention of keeping Sticky Fingers alive, but in order to sustain in the long term, we had to make cutbacks in the short term,” he said.
Daunter would not rule out additional closings, but said the company wants to notify employees before publicizing them.
The downtown Charleston location will remain open, and employees from the Mount Pleasant and Summerville locations will be offered jobs there.
According to Daunter, closing decisions were made with an eye toward advancing the brand, which means the company didn’t just cut from the bottom of the performance list.
“The tourists we all love and the locals we’re passionate about, we think we can service them best from downtown,” Daunter said.
In 1992, recent high school graduates Chad Walldorf, Jeff Goldstein and Todd Eischeid created Sticky Fingers, thinking that selling smoked and sauced ribs sounded like more fun than getting conventional jobs.
A decade later, they sold the popular chain to a private equity group. The original partners in 2016 temporarily rejoined the company, along with longtime operating partner Robert Patterson, who Sticky Fingers last year sued over trade secrets.
“I told our board we’ll never close another restaurant,” Patterson said when he became an owner. “That’s the goal. We don’t need to have a million locations or be traded on the stock market. We want to return this place to its glory days.”
Daunter said up and downs are to be expected over 28 years in business, but added that the coronavirus pandemic “was a very unique situation for the world.” Although the company did steady takeout and delivery sales while dining rooms were closed statewide, it wasn’t enough to surmount the loss of a typical tourist season.
“It’s been nothing less than a struggle trying to maneuver. You’ve got to be able to make tough decisions,” he said.
And with these decisions made, he continued, Sticky Fingers should be around for at least another 28 years.
