Iowa River Power Restaurant closing after Thanksgiving weekend

CORALVILLE, Iowa (KCRG) – The Iowa River Power Restaurant owner has confirmed they will be closing their doors in the near future.

Owner, Danise Petsel told TV9 she felt blindsided when she was served information stating that she had to be out by January 7th. She said she was aware that, eventually, the owner of the building would renovate it and open something completely new, but says she didn’t know it would happen this soon.

“My lease was originally from 2002 to 2022. But then we extended the lease in 2008 when the flood hit,” said Petsel. “That’s not the part he’s contesting, the part he’s contesting is he didn’t receive my option to renew the last 5 years. So he’s saying in October of 2022 he never received it.”

Owner of the building, Randy Ward, says he blindsided no one. He says she never signed the 5 year extension and was only leasing on a month-to-month basis.

Ward says he asked her to terminate the lease in October of 2022, but she didn’t want to. So he extended it another month and that trend continued until recently.

Now, their last day is on November 26th.

Petsel says once everything is done, she plans to retire. But she is concerned for the future of her staff.

“We’re devastated. I, myself, didn’t know what to think at first, it didn’t feel real. I saw a couple employees tear up, a couple people have border-line panic attacks not knowing what they’re going to do,” said long-time server Travis Heck.

Ward says he wants to eventually reopen Iowa River Power in the future, but completed re-modeled.

Copyright 2023 KCRG. All rights reserved.