Popular Gastonia restaurant closes following drug arrest

GASTONIA — Nick's Steak and Seafood operated in a city-owned building on South Street in downtown Gastonia for the last three years. Right across the street from City Hall, there were high hopes a renovated building could pump life into downtown.

City maintenance crews spent all day Wednesday cleaning up inside the place, which quickly closed Tuesday night. The closure comes only weeks after the owner's wife, Regina Lavecchia, was charged with selling cocaine to an informant near the restaurant.

STORY: Gastonia restaurant owner's wife turns self in on drug charges

The city of Gastonia told Channel 9 that owner Nick Lavecchia was behind on lease payments, typically two to three months behind, but that it was still his decision to close.

Records show the lease on the building was $6,875 a month for 10 years. Lavecchia had already paid $319,000 in lease payments, but still owed for December and January.

He would have soon owned the building himself.

In 2010, the city helped Lavecchia with a $700,000 grant to renovate the building. That money was handled by the city, but the restaurant owner oversaw the renovations.

Two doors down at Duren's Jewelry Shop, the owner was bothered by the restaurant's closing.

'It makes me sad," said Russell Duren. He said downtown has struggled after decades of neglect. He feels like it's too late to put so much money into a downtown. "They let it go for 20 years, and it just deteriorated. We don't get the traffic downtown like we used to," he said.

However, Gastonia City Manager Ed Munn said this in a statement given to Channel 9:

"Nick's Restaurant brought people downtown regularly who might not otherwise come downtown.
....we want the next restaurant that occupies that building to help continue that trend."

The building where Nick's was is an old movie theater. The city said it's now worth about $400,000 since it was redone. That's more than double the $170,000 it was valued at in 2010 before renovations began.

As soon as the building is cleaned up, the city will begin accepting offers to try to get a new restaurant to locate there.

WSOC