It’s difficult to think of the day Providence Coal Fired Pizza held it’s grand opening without remembering a more spectacular event less than a block away, where 38 Studios LLC laid off all its workers while the new restaurant was dishing out its first pies.
“Of course it was disappointing,” said Providence Coal Fired General Manager Michael Santos about the loss of nearly 300 potential customers at 38 Studios just as his restaurant was opening its doors. From the sparkling, but quiet, dining room in a newly renovated ground-floor space in the Conrad Building on Westminster Street, Santos acknowledged that having so many office workers nearby made the downtown location more attractive.
“It hurts with the lunch crowd, not having them,” Santos said. “We’re doing well, especially at night with the full bar. But we still have to find a way to fill this place at lunch.”
While much of Rhode Island is still feeling outrage at the potential loss of more than $100 million in state-backed principal and interest on loans made to 38 Studios, the pain around Empire Street is more acute.
The area’s lively restaurant and bar scene has grown in recent years and was buoyed by the arrival of so many well-paid, creative types to the former Blue Cross & Blue Shield building when Rhode Island lured Curt Schilling to town with a $75 million loan guarantee.
For most of them, the bankruptcy has brought the area back to the way it was three years ago when One Empire Plaza was vacant.
“It was good while it lasted,” said Robert Franco, owner of Café La France, the breakfast and lunch counter right across the street from One Empire Plaza. “Now it’s very slow. It’s back to the way it was when the building was empty.”
Franco has let go two workers since 38 Studios’ bankruptcy as business has dropped off 50 percent.
“It came at a bad time, when all the colleges are out,” Franco said. “We’ll survive. This place has been here for 20 years.”
“It’s definitely slower than it was,” said Cuban Revolution Manager Shaun Bramble from behind the bar. “We got to know some of them. They would come in for lunch and when they left, they’d say, ‘see you at happy hour’ and come back after work.”
Bramble said he’s hoping that the owners of One Empire Plaza find a new tenant with workers who appreciate a good meal as much as 38 Studios’ people did – and that it happens relatively quickly.
While it may not replace the loss of 38 Studios on Empire, some of the businesses in the area are likely to get a boost when Hasbro Inc. moves into new offices at 15 LaSalle Square later this year.
The 140,000-square-foot LaSalle Square building, also a former Blue Cross space now owned by Berkeley Investments of Boston, will have 280 workers when Hasbro moves in.
But part of the reason 38 Studios was such a boost to neighborhood businesses was that the video game designers and programmers who worked there had a fair amount of disposable income.
Conditions of the 38 Studios loan guarantee required the business to hire workers making a minimum of $67,500 per year.
At Bravo Brasserie on the corner of Empire and Washington Streets, the departure of 38 Studios has taken a bite out of the lunch crowd.
“As you can see, it is slow,” said server Kristen Destremps during a weekday lunch service with a few tables full. “It hasn’t affected dinner, but lunch is always tough these days. They were really our only business regulars for awhile.”
Destremps said when 38 Studios arrived in 2010, the size of the daily lunch crowd doubled. But even though it has slowed down, Bravo, which has been run under the same name for seven years, has not had to cut back staff or reduce the number of shifts.
“We were upset when we heard about [the layoffs,] not just for us, but for the workers and taxpayers,” Destremps said. “Things have just gone back to the way they were before they got here.”
“We have not noticed any effect on our audiences from their recent closing, but truth be told, we did not really see a lot of business from them prior,” said Trinity Rep Director of Marketing Marilyn Busch in an email. “The only major effect of note is that the fabulous local food trucks are no longer seen around this area as often as they used to.”
Whether their establishments did a lot of 38 Studios-related business or very little, none of the owners or workers at businesses in the area around Empire contacted by Providence Business News remembered seeing Schilling himself since his company’s move to One Empire Plaza.
“Not that I know of, and I think one or our servers would have recognized him,” said Morgan LaCroix, manager at Gracie’s restaurant on Washington Street, about whether Schilling had been a customer.
At Gracie’s, which does not serve lunch, LaCroix said there has not been a noticeable drop in business since 38 Studios went bankrupt. The video game company had reserved the restaurant for a private dinner event about six months ago, LaCroix said, but she wasn’t aware of any 38 Studios employees becoming regulars.
At Roberto’s Barber Shop, owner Roberto Notarantonio said a few 38 Studios employees would come in for haircuts each week.
“They were very nice people – they treated me well,” Notarantonio said.
Notarantonio has been cutting hair at the same storefront for 33 years and seen many businesses come and go. He said while it’s a shame to see 38 Studios gone, the neighborhood is still more active than it was in years past and he and others would survive.
“We’ll be alright,” he said. •
