After 33 years of business, Red Hawk Bar & Grill on State Street announced it will close its doors May 3. In the announcement, the restaurant cited the COVID-19 pandemic and rising inflation as primary reasons for the closure.
In an interview with The Michigan Daily, Magz Mikesell, Red Hawk general manager, said the restaurant started to face financial difficulties following the COVID-19 pandemic due to Oxford Companies’ lack of financial leniency. Mikesell explained the restaurant ‘s recovery from the pandemic was further hindered during State Street’s construction project, which was completed in August 2023.
“Oxford doesn’t give free rent during the pandemic for restaurants that couldn’t stay open,” Mikesell said. “Then State Street shut down for two years after the pandemic for construction. I mean, we relied on all the pedestrians to come in, and so once it becomes difficult to go past all the construction, people are going to start avoiding it.”
Roger Hewitt, co-owner of Red Hawk, told The Daily he felt he would rather close Red Hawk altogether than have to decrease food quality as a result of rising food prices.
“We’ve always tried to base our whole reputation on a quality product, but with inflation the way it is, I think we started to get out of our price range for sandwiches and burgers,” Hewitt said. “I’ve been here for a long since we opened, but I can’t argue with the numbers, and I’m at an age where it’s probably better to just step away.”
Mikesell said they enjoyed Red Hawk’s relaxed work environment and high pay, and that he worries closure will financially hurt the staff.
“This is a very easy place to work. Despite it going out of business, all the servers and even the managers have a guaranteed minimum of $20 an hour,” Mikesell said. “We pay our cooks better than most restaurants. So when they move to a new job, they’re gonna probably take a pay cut, and that’s going to hurt. Most of them have families that they need to support.”
LSA sophomore Esti Shapiro, who had worked at Red Hawk since October 2023, wrote in an email to The Daily she was surprised by the closure announcement.
“I knew that covid hit the restaurant pretty hard, but I didn’t realize the impacts were so bad and still affecting the restaurant,” Shapiro wrote. “Restaurants are super expensive to run, food costs are constantly rising, and employers have to keep paying us fair wages, which they were. It is just too difficult to keep up while trying to recover from the pandemic.”
Michael Englesbe, professor of surgery at the University of Michigan and Ann Arbor resident, has been dining at Red Hawk since 1997. Englesbe told The Daily in an interview the restaurant has been a constant in his life over the years.
“I’m going to miss it,” Englesbe said. “I have a couple groups of friends where that’s become a bit of a place for us, like two gentlemen I work with, once a month we get together at the Red Hawk. Whenever I host the dinner, I try to host it at Red Hawk. It’s just a big part of my professional life here in Ann Arbor.”
When discussing next steps, Hewitt said he plans to retire but his other business, Revive + Replenish, which will remain open.
“I just plan to retire,” Hewitt said. “My business partner, my wife, and I also have another operation, Revive + Replenish, over on East University, which is doing fine, and we’re going to keep that one open.”
Daily Staff Reporter Julia Arboleda can be reached at jarbol@umich.edu.
