Sign of the Beefcarver, the Woodward Avenue restaurant that has served roast beef dinners in Royal Oak for nearly 70 years, will close for good on Sunday, Oct. 25.

The owners announced the shutdown in a Facebook post on Sunday, Oct. 18, citing rising food costs and financial damage that never healed after the pandemic. The Royal Oak location is the last of a metro Detroit chain that once stretched across 18 sites, according to Crain's Detroit Business.

"Beef is at an all-time high," Jay Joliat, who has run the restaurant since 1988, told the Detroit Free Press on Oct. 18. "Energy and everything else are at all-time highs. Between the cost of food, labor, energy… it became too much."

Joliat is the son of late co-founder Jack Joliat, who bought the Woodward Avenue property with partner Bob LaJoie in 1956. The restaurant opened in 1957 as Sign of the Beefeater, a cafeteria-style spot with waitress service. A legal fight with the makers of Beefeater Gin later forced the name change, the Free Press reported.

The chain grew to employ more than 1,000 people at its peak, Joliat told the Free Press. Some staff members stayed more than 30 years, which Joliat called "unusual in the restaurant business." A Dearborn location closed in 2018, leaving Royal Oak as the first and last Beefcarver standing.

In the early 1960s, Joliat said, a roast beef dinner cost $1.98. Now it runs about $15 to $20. The owners' Facebook post singled out the historically high price of roast beef, the restaurant's namesake dish, as a key pressure.

The post also cited pandemic-era losses. "Ever since the government mandated shutdown from Covid, and the devastation that caused for operating a restaurant and attracting customers, Beefcarver has struggled to survive," the owners wrote, as reported by FOX 2 Detroit.

Within the first hour of the Oct. 18 announcement, more than 325 comments followed on Facebook, the Free Press reported, with customers sharing memories of meals and years spent working at the restaurant.

An employee who answered the phone on Oct. 18 told the Free Press they learned of the closing when they arrived for work that morning.

Joliat told the Free Press the family owns the building and is exploring what to do with the property.