Getting your
Trinity Audioplayer ready...By Bethany Clough, The Fresno Bee
The restaurant is locked up tight with a “notice to vacate” posted on the door.
The highly lauded barbecue spot that opened in January in Granite Park near Ashlan and Cedar avenues with long lines was a homecoming for Fresno native Matt Horn.
Considered a rising star in the culinary world, Horn and his Horn Barbecue in Oakland earned a James Beard Award nomination and was the first Black-owned barbecue restaurant in the country to receive a Michelin Bib Gourmand award.
But troubles at his Bay Area restaurants appear to have followed him to Fresno. There are claims of unpaid wages, a fire that destroyed the Oakland restaurant being investigated as arson, and the closure of all but one of his restaurants.
The downtown Oakland restaurant, which replaced the one that burned, is still open.
The Fresno Horn Barbecue
In Fresno, a passerby said a sign went up on the Fresno Horn Barbecue May 18 saying it would reopen, but it never did, and the sign was later removed.
The legal notice on the door, a precursor to formal legal eviction, gives the restaurant until 6:01 a.m. June 17 to leave the premises.
The landlord and the attorney representing them did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment about the situation. Notices to vacate can be served for unpaid rent or other reasons the landlord cites to cancel the rental agreement.
The Bee reached out to Horn and his spokesman about the closure Thursday morning. The spokesman said he would share a statement from Horn, but it hadn’t arrived several hours later.
In March, The Bee reported that several employees said they weren’t getting paid and had quit. They said managers had asked workers for mobile payment account information, such as Zelle or Cash App, to pay them.
Two people had filed unpaid wage claims with the State of California at the time. Thursday, unpaid wage claims against Horn Barbecue in the Fresno area had jumped to 12.
In total, 23 claims have been filed relating to restaurants in Oakland and the Sacramento area, with four of them closed, settled or dismissed.
Horn Barbecue once had a location in Old Town Elk Grove, but it was repossessed by its landlord in January, less than a year after opening.
In March, a representative of Horn told The Fresno Bee that the payment difficulties in Fresno were temporary because the restaurant’s opening was delayed. The restaurant was spending money without taking any in, Seneca Scott said.