After eight decades, Valley Dairy is no longer serving meals in downtown Latrobe.
The Latrobe-based restaurant chain on Sunday closed its location at Jefferson and Chestnut streets. A company official said that store hasn’t performed up to expectations.
Valley Dairy welcomed customers to return for dine-in meals at the Latrobe restaurant and at several other locations on June 5, when Westmoreland and neighboring counties moved into the green phase of reopening from business restrictions related to the covid-19 pandemic.
But Tom Webb, the company’s director of operations, said the Latrobe eatery has “been an under-performing restaurant for some time now” and faced the prospect of fewer customers than normal this summer.
“The only time we did pretty decent was in the summer,” he said, when major events such as Latrobe’s Fourth Of July celebration and parade attracted diners. “With covid-19, all that has been canceled.”
People posting on Valley Dairy’s Facebook page reacted with a mixture of dismay and support. Some expressed concern about the loss of a convenient dining option for senior citizens who live in apartment buildings across Jefferson Street.
Webb said the restaurant “used to get a ton of traffic” from the buildings. But, he said, “over the last few years, it’s been really sparse. We did have some regulars from there, but it wasn’t a lot.”
He noted Valley Dairy operates another restaurant a relatively short distance away, on Colony Lane in Unity. The restaurant posted that its food can be ordered for delivery through doordash.com and grubhub.com.
“It definitely was a tough decision,” Webb said of the closure. “It’s sad.”
Webb said about a half dozen employees have transferred from the Latrobe restaurant to the Unity location.
The Valley Dairy chain, known for its line of take-home ice cream tubs, evolved from a dairy store that opened in 1938 on Main Street in Latrobe.
It operates additional restaurants in Belle Vernon, Mt. Pleasant, Connellsville, near Kittanning, Blairsville, Indiana, Butler, Cranberry, DuBois and Johnstown.
