Jul 7, 2026
It started with a pair of New Hampshire skiers who fell in love with Utah and decided to stay. In 1973, they opened what the owners believe was Salt Lake City’s first submarine sandwich shop, a neighborhood fixture that changed hands and changed names before Curtis deLagerheim bought the business in 2010.
This summer, after more than 50 years, it may not survive the current economy.
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Gaetano’s — which traces its roots to that original sandwich shop, then known as Grinders 13 — is in trouble.. The flagship Salt Lake City shop on South State Street has been listed for sale for six months without attracting a buyer. The location in Murray, a southern suburb of the city, has already shuttered.
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DeLagerheim captured the moment in a sentence on Instagram: “Welcome to the craziest year we have ever known.”
In a conversation with the Salt Lake Tribune, deLagerheim pointed to a confluence of forces: weak foot traffic, an increasingly corporate competitive landscape, and what he described simply as “the atmosphere of Salt Lake at this time.”
After buying the business, he renamed it after his grandmother — someone who, he said, “took great delight, as do I, with feeding people and making people happy” — and spent more than 15 years building it into an institution with 30 sandwiches on the menu. Now he’s deciding whether to fight for it or let it go.
A city shedding its old anchors
Gaetano’s isn’t the only Salt Lake City institution in this situation.
Market Street Grill and Oyster Bar, a downtown landmark location of a seafood chain that spent nearly 50 years flying in fresh fish daily, recently closed its original location, citing shifting consumer habits, office vacancy nearby and dwindling street-level traffic, the U.S. Sun reports.
Mountain West Brands CEO Edmond Heelan framed it as a structural reality, rather than a performance failure: “This decision reflects the changing dynamics of downtown and is not a reflection of the incredible people who made this restaurant special.”
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A pattern across the US
The pattern is repeating itself across American cities.
For example, near Nashville, Cock of the Walk — a catfish restaurant that operated along Briley Parkway for over 40 years — recently posted a farewell message to its community online: “As we close this chapter, know that we will always cherish being able to serve you and being a part of your memories,” the U.S. Sun notes.
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In Washington, D.C., Nation’s Restaurant News (NRN) reported that 92 restaurants shuttered in 2025 — nearly double the number that closed in 2022 — with mid-priced full-service restaurants hit hardest: 76% reported fewer diners, and no casual dining operators reported any sales growth at all.
Loyal customers can’t close the traffic gap
The numbers make clear why affection alone isn’t enough to save these places.
According to NRN, the U.S. lost a net 9,500 independent restaurants in 2025 — a 2.3% contraction, meaning 412,498 independent eateries remain nationwide.
Full-service independents fared the worst, contracting 2.6%. Over that same period, chain restaurant locations grew 1.4%, with cumulative sales for the top 1,500 chains exceeding $480 billion.
As NRN notes, the current environment clearly favors businesses with scale. Chains have deeper pockets to absorb cost pressures that push independent operators past the point of viability.
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Traffic is the core problem. The National Restaurant Association’s data captures the paradox directly: while half of operators reported higher same-store sales in May, 45% reported fewer customers — meaning any revenue gains are being driven by higher menu prices, not more diners.
Restaurant Dive, citing Black Box Intelligence, found that 9% of full-service restaurants tracked had shed 30% or more of their peak sales volume since 2019. It notes that operators with mounting debt and higher fixed costs are vulnerable, and that the softening economy in later 2025 pushed many of those struggling businesses below viability.
Meanwhile, the share of meals happening inside a restaurant fell from 56% of food service sales in 2011 to just 35% in 2025, per Euromonitor data cited in the same report — a shift accompanied by the rise of gig-economy restaurant delivery that can hit neighborhood sit-down spots particularly hard.
The bigger picture
DeLagerheim hasn’t made a final decision about the State Street location. But what’s clear is the forces working against him — corporate competition, reduced foot traffic, a changed urban landscape — are the same ones dismantling beloved local institutions from Nashville to Washington and other places in between.
A family name above the door and 50 years of sandwiches are meaningful things. But in 2026’s restaurant economy, they’re not enough on their own.
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With a writing and editing career spanning over 15 years, Emma creates and refines content across a broad spectrum of industries, including personal finance, lifestyle, travel, health & wellness, real estate, beauty & fitness and B2B/SaaS/tech.
