The food was good and people loved the friendly place but in the end the virus killed it.

Another Etobicoke popular buffet restaurant, Tucker’s Marketplace, which graced the Airport
Strip area for many years has been shut down due to COVID-19.

The chain shut its well-liked restaurants in Etobicoke, Ottawa and Burlington last March after being hit hard by the pandemic.

“Unfortunately, it seems the undeniable reality is that COVID-19 will be with us for some time,” Tucker’s said in a statement. “Restaurants will be required to operate with capacity restrictions and to main physical distancing.”

The company was flying high just a few years ago and by 1984 had 21 successful locations across Canada and in the U.S. Midwest, officials says.

The company teamed up with a venture capital firm in 1994 to relaunch the chain as a buffet. By then it was down to three locations, and tried take-out without success.

“We have concluded therefore, that there is not a profitable path forward for our business,” Tucker’s officials say. “Sadly, we are writing to tell you that we will not be reopening our restaurants.”

The restaurant’s antiques and unfinished brick walls were a call back to the chain’s first incarnation, Mother Tucker’s Food Experience. The restaurant started in a 1920s warehouse in downtown Edmonton in 1976.