WORCESTER—The District Wood Fired Kitchen is the latest in a spate of business closures to hit the city’s Canal District.
“With a heavy heart, we unfortunately have closed District Wood Fired Kitchen,” a post on the restaurant’s Facebook page posted Tuesday read. “We want to thank our valued employees, patrons, and the community.”
The owners will be exploring new concepts and hope to reopen the location in 2024, according to the post.
Last week, two other Canal District businesses—Maker to Main and Lock 50—announced their closures as well.
Lock 50 was sold by Ed Russo in October to Jason Emmett who told employees that the restaurant, which hasn’t been open since Dec. 31, was closing due to issues with licensing. In an email to employees, an HR representative for the company said they were looking to open in the spring as an American Icon Taproom.
Maker to Main’s owner Lynn Cheney wrote in a Facebook post on Friday that she “realized you can pivot, fix problems, follow economic trends and implement new tactics to fulfill demand, but in the end still fail because not everything is within your control.”
District Wood Fired Kitchen opened at 90 Harding St. in May 2022. The space used to house the Compass Tavern before it was purchased by Chris Besaw and Cliff Rucker, who also own Off the Rails on Commercial Street, the Telegram & Gazette reported.
Any gift cards purchased at District Wood Fired Kitchen will be honored at Off the Rails, according to the post.
“Our expectations is to bring in families from the games, bring in families from the ice center and to be a nice neighborhood restaurant in the Canal District,” Besaw told the newspaper.
The Worcester Guardian has reached out to Cliff Rucker for comment.
Kiernan Dunlop is an award-winning journalist who has spent the past five years reporting in Worcester, New Bedford, and Antigua and Barbuda. Her work has been published in Bloomberg, USA Today, Canary Media, MassLive, and the New Bedford Standard Times, among other outlets. She can be contacted at kdunlop@theworcesterguardian.org
