A well-known Old Mandeville restaurant will have a last hurrah on Saturday before closing the lid for good on the smoker.
Pyre BBQ is closed, its owner announced on Facebook this week. The restaurant will be open this Saturday, Aug. 3, from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. for one last shift, owner/chef Jeff Mattia said Friday.
“It’ll be one last time to use up inventory and say goodbye to our friends,” he said.
"Let's make this an epic Saturday," the restaurant said in a Facebook post this week announcing its closure.
Opened in 2021 on Woodrow Street across from the Tammany Trace’s Mandeville trailhead, Pyre BBQ was a pared-down outgrowth of Mattia’s Covington restaurant, Pyre Provisions, which he had closed earlier that year. Pyre BBQ was meant as a more casual barbecue restaurant, with counter service and a big patio to capitalize on the location alongside the Tammany Trace recreational path.
Mattia said he is taking a job as a sous chef at the Hyatt Regency in New Orleans.
Chef Jeff Mattia opened Pyre Provisions in Covington.
A handful of factors played into the decision to close Pyre, he said.
“The economy, obviously, being where it is,” he said before later adding, “it was just not something meant to be.”
Before Pyre leased the building, it had housed a sno-ball shop.
Mattia said someone is looking at the property as a place to open a new restaurant and thinks the location is good. He thanked the people of St. Tammany and Mandeville for their support.
Since Pyre opened, Varsity Sports opened a new store on the same block. A commercial building is also under construction next door. The trailhead also gets busy at times, with a weekly farmers market and regular spring and fall concert schedule.
“Hopefully, someone will go in and give the community a restaurant there,” he said.
