Bye, Shari’s. Family-style restaurant chain known for pie closes its last Tacoma location

Shari’s Cafe & Pies has closed its last Tacoma location.

The phone line at the restaurant at Tacoma Place, the shopping plaza at 1901 S. 72nd St. in the South End, connects to an automatic voicemail that says, “This location has closed.” It redirects callers to the nearest Shari’s at Route 512 and Canyon Road in Puyallup.

An employee there confirmed that the Tacoma outpost went dark after service on Sunday, July 21. Neighboring businesses on 72nd Street also believe that to have been the last day.

Emails and phone calls to the corporate office in Beaverton, Oregon, were not immediately returned. It’s unclear how many people were affected by the closure and whether they were offered employment at the remaining Pierce County outpost.

Shari’s Cafe & Pies also operates two restaurants in Olympia, as well as two each in King and Kitsap counties. There are a total of 14 still standing in Washington, according to locations listed on the company website and a confirmation of open hours on Google.

The 72nd Street restaurant no longer lists hours, and its status on Google has been changed to “permanently closed.”

Shari’s in Tacoma Central closed in January 2022. Puyallup also lost a Shari’s — at 107 37th Avenue — the year prior. The Federal Way Shari’s kicked the can late last year, according to a local Reddit page.

The apparent spate of closures in the past few years reflects the challenges of this subset of casual, family dining that predates the pandemic. Late-night dining has also taken a hit: Shari’s was once 24 hours but recently has shifted to late-night-only, and only at select stores.

The first Shari’s opened in Hermiston, Oregon, in 1978. As the brand grew, it became recognizable by its hexagon-shaped buildings with the kitchen right in the middle. The company expanded to almost 100 restaurants in seven states by 1999. Private equity firm CapitalSpring scooped the brand in 2016.

In 2018, it employed 3,500 people at 93 locations, according to a news release. At some point, Gather Holdings, LLC became the official parent company of Shari’s and Coco’s Restaurants. The headquarters were “decentralized” from Beaverton, adding offices in Carlsbad, California, and Dallas, and the company put money into growing takeout sales and updating the rewards program. Last year, another investment firm took a stake in the dozens of Oregon locations, which all offer “video lottery gaming.”