Salt Works II, from Restaurant: Impossible, closed very suddenly in 2015 and could not finish its last week due to a lack of staff.
When the expert chef, restaurateur and businessman, Robert Irvine, and his team of designers and contractors, showed up at Salt Works II in Wilmington in North Carolina back in 2010, all was not going to plan.
But, systematically with Irvine’s help and the show’s customary $10,000 makeover, best friends Mike Thyberg and Jon Flatt were able to transform their casual dining establishment by the end of the episode.
It even became a real favorite among local diners after Irvine and the rest of the Restaurant: Impossible crew left town.
Salt Works II’s sudden closure
This is, of course, until the restaurant closed down somewhat unexpectedly in November 2015. Up to this point, Salt Works II had seemingly been doing well and was maintaining fairly positive reviews for a few years.
However, Thyberg and Flatt revealed in a long farewell message which was posted on the restaurant’s Facebook page on November 6, that Salt Works II would be closing its doors permanently and with immediate effect.
Although this message kept most of the details vague, Thyberg and Flatt did elaborate that they had “planned on letting the public know today and had hoped to work through the weekend and go out with a bang”.
But after a few “key employees” chose to leave the restaurant upon hearing the news, the eatery unfortunately had no choice but to close its doors a few days earlier than expected, as it did not have enough staff to get through services.
The fate of the other restaurants from Restaurant: Impossible season one
Longtime Restaurant: Impossible fans will know that while it is always incredibly sad to see a small business close its doors, Salt Works II is certainly not the only restaurant that has failed despite Irvine’s intervention.
The current status of all of the restaurants featured on the first season of the series can be summarized as follows:
| No. | Restaurant | Status |
| 1. | Villari’s | Closed |
| 2. | Mainelli’s | Closed |
| 3. | Rascal’s BBQ and Crab House | Closed |
| 4. | Salt Works II | Closed |
| 5. | Meglio’s | Closed |
| 6. | Secret Garden Cafe | Open |
| 7. | Flood Tide | Closed |
The reason why Salt Works II closed down is still unknown
The farewell post from Salt Works II’s former owners went to great lengths to explain why the restaurant could not stay open and operational for another few days and to thank all of the employees who were willing to “stick it out to the end.”
But the post did not provide any clues as to why the restaurant was closing down after so many years in business.
And since the restaurant has now been closed for longer than Thyberg and Flatt ever owned it, it seems like the real reason why Salt Works II closed down so suddenly will remain a mystery for the foreseeable future.
What Mike Thyberg and Jon Flatt are up to now
It is nearly impossible not to get invested in the emotional journey of the owners who sign on to have their restaurants’ ugly under-bellies exposed to the public as a last resort on Restaurant: Impossible.
But Mike Thyberg and Jon Flatt, the owners of Salt Works II, pretty much dropped off the map when the restaurant closed down.
The website for The Retirement Resource Group, which is also based Wilmington, reveals that Thyberg now works as a General Agent, but there has been no update on what happened to Flatt.
As for the space that used to be Salt Works II’s home, it is currently occupied by another restaurant, which is called ‘Molly Pitcher’s American Grill’.
Did the Restaurant: Impossible intervention not work?
It is no secret that Restaurant: Impossible and other business-rescue-type shows’ formulaic and quick-fix approaches to business often provide a solution that simply comes too late to keep the restaurants that appear on the shows in business, especially once the added publicity fades away.
However, the Salt Works II owners had been hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt by the time that the Restaurant: Impossible team showed up to bring Irvine’s suggested changes on board.
And some of the changes must have been effective, as they were able to keep the doors open for another five years (four years after the Restaurant: Impossible episode first aired).
And before Salt Works II’s closure was announced, the restaurant had quite an impressive 3.1 out of 5 star rating on Yelp.
This indicates, at the very least, that Irvine’s intervention left the restaurant in a better place than it was in before the episode aired.
