Nothing Lasts Forever: Restaurants and Churches

In recent weeks, there have been a string of announcements of restaurant closures in my hometown of Memphis. With each announcement, at least one of my close friends always responds with, “Nooooo! That was my favorite place!” Or, “We just went there two weeks ago and it seemed to be doing fine!” The increase in restaurant closures lately has mostly been attributed to several factors – rising food costs, labor shortages, landlord disputes, and too many folks sticking to their pandemic-era habits of eating at home. Recently, I have talked with some friends in the hospitality industry about these challenges and how the current realities create heightened difficulty for the restaurant business. As I listen to the laundry list of challenges that lead restaurants to consider closure, I can’t help but think, “Wow, this sounds an awful lot like the church.”

For context, I currently serve as pastor at a 196 year-old congregation on the north end of Downtown Memphis. The “glory days” of this community, when membership rolls represented an extensive list of who’s who in the city, coincided with the years that an addition was built in the 1950s, doubling the building size and adding classrooms, a commercial kitchen and a second, sizeable fellowship hall. However, toward the end of the 1960s, and particularly in the decade following the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in 1968, Downtown Memphis saw a mass exodus of businesses and residents, leaving what many described the as a “ghost town” in the urban core. While a great amount of revitalization has happened and continues today, the two tallest buildings in the city skyline remain vacant, towering reminders that our city is still working to bring back life to our downtown.

Through it all, our downtown church has remained. The membership is small, but those who call the congregation home are deeply committed to one another and to the urban ministries that operate out of the church to meet the immediate needs of downtown neighbors living on the margins – a soup kitchen, food pantry, clothes closet and birth certificate retrieval program. Presently, the church operates in the same manner as many of Memphis’ working poor – getting by paycheck to paycheck with only some reserves stashed away to weather an emergency. While there is some endowed money in this historic church, the community realizes that they are merely one, major, 140 year-old building crisis away from needing the spend a good chunk (or all) of their safety-net endowed funds.

Despite the challenges we face, this little downtown community of faith presses on, leaning into their mission to serve above all else while also experiencing the increased workload of keeping their vital ministries afloat with limited volunteers – a challenge they have met head-on by developing relationships with other congregations, faith communities and organizations to increase outside volunteer engagement in their work.

As I look at the challenges restaurants are facing, I see a parallel struggle in the church. Restaurants struggle with costs of food and rent. This year, the insurance on the roof of our church went up 54% in one annual cycle. Restaurants struggle with patrons choosing to eat at home. Church attendance remains lower nationally post-pandemic and many choose to watch “virtual church” on their own time as they had grown accustomed to during social distancing. Restaurants struggle with adequate and affordable staffing. The church is facing an intersectional challenge of lower enrollment in graduate theological schools, fewer full-time local church jobs and stagnant or declining salaries. This challenging climate means that many long-term and beloved restaurants are facing closure. Current predictions state that up to 100,000 churches (somewhere between a quarter and a third of all churches in the United States) will close in the coming decade (yes, you read that right, decade).

I read an article recently on Toronto’s public media that described the closure of a beloved restaurant as akin to the death of a close friend. When we learn that one of our favorite spots is closing, we go through all those traditional stages of grief – anger (“Nooo!”), denial (“Can’t be! I was just there last month and it was packed.”), bargaining (“Maybe if we all pack the place, we can save it!”), acceptance, etc. We usually then plan one last ceremonial visit if the closure is known in advance, bringing our friends and loved ones for one final, fond experience where we reminisce and savor all that is good about the establishment (almost like a foodie funeral). I find myself wondering, will this be the same series of feelings and events when a beloved church closes?

Being a local church pastor and a restauranteur share a lot of similarities these days. We both wonder if all the heart and soul we put into our work will yield the results we hope for. We find ourselves perpetually asking the same questions:,

“Will people come?”
“Will they feel at home here?”
“Will they have a meaningful experience here that makes them want to come back, tell others and bring their friends next time?”
“Will the overhead costs stifle the creativity?”
“How do we communicate that if people like it here and see our value, we need them to come back often?”

One of the hard truths I have been leaning into lately is that nothing lasts forever. The same is true of the largest megachurch campus and the most prestigious restaurant where reservations are made a year in advance and secured with a credit card deposit. And yet, both the church and the will to create establishments that inspire people with delicious food and beautiful atmospheres will always be around. Those things continue. We are in a season of great change in this nation. As costs rise, as technology changes so rapidly and people are seeking different ways to connect and form community, these changes are causing ripple effects that extend beyond the hospitality industry and the local church. Things are changing. Not necessarily dying. When a restaurant closes, you can bet that the chef and owners have other dreams and ideas already in the works. When a church community closes, or merges or sells their building out of necessity, the church does not go out of business. Their members don’t stop believing or stop “doing church.”

So here is my question to anyone with enough interest to have made it this far… Are there institutions or establishments that are important to you that you may have been overlooking or taking for granted that they will always be there? When was the last time you paid a visit?

Or, in learning that some place beloved to you is closing, are there goodbye rituals that honor what that place has meant to you?

Lastly, if you learn that your favorite restaurant or your favorite church is closing its doors because of uncontrollable circumstances, are you willing follow along and see what comes next? Because there is always a next. Churches get new life as communities merge or reform elsewhere. Restaurants often move, evolve and change as the people who made the place you loved special move on to their next projects.

Nothing lasts forever. Or does it?