Last Ham's restaurant closes
Jul. 13—HIGH POINT — The last remaining Ham's restaurant permanently closed on Monday, according to owner Rocco Scarfone.
Ham's American Bar and Grille at Palladium at 5840 Samet Drive in High Point closed primarily due to a protracted labor shortage.
"We have been unable for quite a while now to adequately staff the restaurant, and it was not getting any better," Scarfone said Tuesday. "So we had to make a decision on what to do, and if you don't have staff, you can't provide the customer service. So it was a tough decision, but we had to make it."
The restaurant opened in 2005 on an outparcel at the Palladium shopping center and became a popular draw for its sports-bar business and live music.
It was one of two Ham's locations in High Point. The other, on N. Main Street near Eastchester Drive, closed in 2013, and the building was later demolished to make way for the Publix shopping center.
Ham's was founded in Greensboro in 1935, and Scarfone said its last remaining restaurant in that city on New Garden Road closed in 2019 after it could not come to terms with its landlord on a lease renewal.
In recent years, it also shuttered its other Triad locations and one in Danville, Virginia, that closed during the coronavirus pandemic.
"It's been an honor to serve everybody over the years, and unfortunately not being able to staff and the price of goods are just going through the roof, we had to make that decision," he said.
Scarfone does not own the 1-acre parcel on which the 7,629-square-foot restaurant building sits.
"The building is going up for lease, and hopefully somebody else will be able to get in there and be able to make a go of it," he said.
pkimbrough@hpenews.com — 336-888-3531
