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It seems like terrible — and terribly ironic — timing for an Irish pub to shut its doors right before the holiday that turns every ordinary American Irish, but it’s true — Lis Doon Varna has closed.
The Peoria Irish pub quietly shut its doors about three weeks ago, and word’s slowly getting out as St. Patrick’s Day looms.
And apparently, it was not a victim of the economy, but rather one of the city’s real estate fiasco.
“Business was good over there,” says Steve Goumas from My Goodness Inc, the management company that runs Rula Bula in Tempe, and used to run Lis Doon Varna until last July. Both restaurants had the distinction of being the first two Guinness pubs in Arizona.
Goumas stresses that Rula Bula has no connection to Lis Doon Varna, and explains that the West Side eatery was the renter in a building that went into bankruptcy last summer, and that the bank, Wells Fargo, did not negotiate long-term financing. The trustee in charge closed the restaurant, and now it appears that the property is on the market.
