Mike's Pig Pen closing after eight years

Craig Fox, Watertown Daily Times, N.Y.
·2 min read

Jul. 30—WATERTOWN — The owner of Mike's Pig Pen says COVID-19 killed his business.

Mike A. Cornell, who has operated the roadside restaurant since 2013, is closing the outer Washington Street hamburger joint next Friday.

"The days of COVID and masks did it," he said, adding people were just scared to go out to eat. "There's no profit in it anymore, unless you buy a $14 burger."

Although the writing may have been on the wall for a while, Mr. Cornell said Thursday that he made the decision "yesterday."

During the height of the pandemic, he put a "for sale" sign in front of the restaurant, with the hopes of selling it. A number of local restaurants and other businesses permanently closed after the pandemic hit in March of last year.

As a result of the pandemic, he was forced to get another job, driving to Phoenix every day, when business got slow. And now his girlfriend, who has been running the restaurant while Mr. Cornell was at work, also got another job to make ends meet. It had been just the two of them manning the restaurant for some time.

They couldn't keep going anymore, he said. His customers, the regulars and a group of guys who come in for coffee every morning, aren't happy.

"I really feel bad for them," Mr. Cornell said. "I'm absolutely going to miss them."

A big pink pig with a chef hat on the building's roof welcomed customers, who could order breakfast as early as 6 a.m. and lunch until 3 p.m., serving up Hoffman hots, sausages and burgers.

The restaurant has already stopped serving breakfast.

Mr. Cornell still hopes to sell the business, with a prospective buyer looking at it on Saturday.

"I don't want to jinx it," he said.

A few years ago, Mr. Cornell got into a flap over a town zoning law when he installed a flashing sign that scrolled daily specials. He eventually had to take it down.

"That's government," he says now.

In 2013, he purchased Harby's Hots from the Harblin family, who owned the restaurant for 27 years. The original owner, Kenneth J. Harblin, opened the hotdog stand in 1976. Mr. Harblin died in 2012.