Saying Goodbye: A New Restaurant Closes Its Doors

A recent Saturday night in late March was one of the best nights of business , a Colonia restaurant open scarcely a year, ever had.

"We did very well," said Wayne Ricco, the head chef and one of the restaurant's three owners.

It was also the last night the restaurant was open. Maxwell's 35 would've in May; they closed their doors for the last time in March.

Maybe it was the bad economy, or as Ricco thinks, "the neighborhood never embraced the concept" of a on St. Georges Avenue. 

"We couldn't get to the point where this place would pay the bills," said Ricco, who had never taken a paycheck from the place since it opened its doors.

Ricco and his partners gave Maxwell's 35 a big send off: they charged $15 for an open buffet, and customers flowed through the doors.

"We wanted to get rid of our inventory. It got a little crazy there for awhile," he said.

The head chef couldn't say why the restaurant didn't catch on - except maybe that customers thought Maxwell's 35 "was expensive, and we weren't."

"The economy is bad. We might have overshot our concept for this demographic. Without sound bitter, the people in this area wouldn't stop in. The people who did come in loved it," Ricco said.

It's a great location: 38,000 cars pass by Maxwell's 35 every day. It's good traffic for the next restaurant that starts up, maybe with a different type of theme and menu.

Ricco and his partners are hoping to rent out the building. 

He won't be licking his wounds for long: he starts a new job as executive chef for the Meadowland's Pegasus restaurant today.

"It's been three years, an arduous road," Ricco said. "It'll be nice to have a paycheck coming in again."