Why the owner of Siggy’s Good Food closed her new Belmont neighborhood eatery

Siggy Sollitto sold her last Beef Kebobs Hero on Sunday at Siggy’s Good Food before closing the doors of her fast-casual eatery for good.

Sollitto decided to shut down her organic Mediterranean restaurant located at 1001 Belmont Ave. in the Belmont neighborhood after being open just nine months.

“It’s a young man’s game, and I felt that I am not physically fit, and my parents are aging fast,” said Sollitto, who is 51. “They need a little bit of my help.”

Instead, Sollitto will pursue other interests, including fashion design and real estate.

This won’t be Sollitto’s first career change. Sollitto previously served in the Israeli Army, has owned two restaurants, and she appeared as a contestant on the TV show “Chopped” in 2010.

According to Siggy’s Good Food’s website, they hoped to “enrich the nutritional lives of our guests and employees by serving organic, sustainable and whole-food dishes.”

Why she didn’t tell anyone

Sollitto didn’t tell any of her customers her plans to close.

“It’s hard to deliver. I just wasn’t ready to engage in that conversation,” she said.

She had been considering closing for months. On May 1, she scaled back the restaurant’s hours, eliminating dinner service and began serving lunch only. She made the decision to close for good late last week.

Sollitto opened Siggy’s Good Food in Belmont on Sept. 4 last year after operating a restaurant by the same name in New York City for more than 10 years.

In Charlotte, she said she had expected to see more pedestrians walking by her storefront.

“When we were getting ready to open, I posted menus on the windows, just like in New York,” Sollitto said. “Then I realized nobody was coming by to read them.”

But Sollitto still believes the Belmont location has potential, and she invested “a lot” into the building.

“The windows, the exterior, the zoning,” contributed to her costs, Sollitto said.

She will maintain ownership of the store and lease it. Addison De Mallie, a broker from National Restaurant Properties, will represent Siggy’s. She hopes to lease the space for $3,850 a month, Sollitto told the Charlotte Business Journal.

This story was originally published June 3, 2019 at 3:32 PM.