Popular north Columbus restaurant to close its doors on Saturday

A popular north Columbus barbecue restaurant will close its doors Saturday afternoon after more than 17 years of operation.

Chicken Comer has been located at 2609 Desmond Drive, just off Veterans Parkway near the Hughston Clinic.The property had recently sold to NBI, LLP, a corporation made up of Hughston Clinic physicians, said Hughston CEO Mark Baker.

They plan to demolish the building and use the property, and an adjacent piece they acquired, for future expansion, Baker said.

The move made sense to close the business now, said Terry Bussey, who has owned Chicken Comer for almost six years. He announced in February that he planned to build an additional store in Phenix City. That store at the intersection of intersection of 14th Street and 11th Avenue opened on Aug. 7.

Chicken Comer started in 1929 in Phenix City. The restaurant has changed ownership at least five times.

The opening of the new store in Phenix City made Bussey’s decision to close the north Columbus location now a little easier, he said.

“I saw this coming for a couple of years,” he said. “I knew something was going to happen and we needed to be positioned for it.”

The Columbus store will close at 3 p.m. Saturday, Bussey said.

“If you want a plate in Columbus, you better get it before then,” he said.

The Columbus store has some maintenance issues and it did not make sense to invest the needed money to fix the problems when the new owners plan to tear down the building, Bussey said.

“Why fix a building that is going to be a parking lot?” Bussey said.

The new owners have worked with him as he worked to close the business, Bussey said.

“My lease runs through September 2018, but doing this now just makes sense for everyone,” he said.

Baker said the move also made sense from their viewpoint.

“He could have stayed there, but we are not in the real estate business to lease and have tenants,” Baker said.

Chicken Comer’s Columbus location has four employees and two will move across the river to the Phenix City store. The other two have taken different jobs, Bussey said.

This story was originally published November 30, 2017 at 11:19 AM with the headline "Popular north Columbus restaurant to close its doors on Saturday."