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By NATHAN HOWELL | Special to the Reporter 

ALABASTER — Less than a year after opening its doors, the Alabaster location of Golden Rule BBQ closed its doors for business on Wednesday, Sept. 30.

Owner Paul Curcio said that while the restaurant was warmly received by the residents of Alabaster, the timing of the COVID-19 pandemic caused the business to suffer financially and could not justify continuing.

“When we opened it up last October, we had a good start and a lot of good feedback,” Curcio explained. “When winter time came, we had a dip in sales and then we started climbing around the first of the year.

“However, when the shutdown came we tried to stay open, but our sales bottomed out. They were 30 percent less than normal, so we had to shut down temporarily.”

Golden Rule reopened back in July following the shutdown, but despite support from the community, the store was unable to recoup the business, which led Curcio and staff to the decision of closing the restaurant.

As the third location of the chain, Curcio said he wanted it to succeed and even tried to adapt his business for the pandemic economy.

“We tried to do everything like curbside, pickup and Doordash, but unfortunately we were not able to recover to the point that we needed to,” he explained.

All of the location’s employees will have jobs available for them at the Pelham location, and with a new restaurant that Curcio plans to open this year next door to the Pelham location, which will conjoin the two restaurants.

“We are forever thankful for the time we had to serve Alabaster residents,” Curcio said.