After eight years in business, Carlyle Bland said he was forced to make the painful decision on Sunday to shutter his downtown Hampton bar and grill, Brown Chicken Brown Cow.

“It’s not one thing that happened,” Bland said. “It’s just a culmination and maybe we did not have the correct concept.”

Bland, along with his wife, Christina Bauhof, have also co-owned Venture Kitchen & Bar for the past 12 years and Marker 20 for 23 years. Those two ventures, also on East Queens Way in downtown Hampton, continue to thrive, Bland said.

The business owners relayed the closure news to customers via the restaurant’s website: “After eight years of firing up the smoker, flipping burgers, scooping floats, trading jokes with guests, and working side-by-side, laughing (and sometimes crying) with co-workers, we’ve served our last meal.”

They also posted the news on Facebook, where customers responded with shock and sadness.

Bland kept putting off the emotional decision, knowing Brown Chicken Brown Cow operated with a great staff.

“I’ve known most of them since before the time we opened — going back 20 years,” he said. “Everybody uses that cliche — but they are our family.”

All of the 25 employees — both full- and part-time — received severance pay, and Bland is busy trying to find them new employment, whether at one of his other restaurants or elsewhere.

“We ultimately couldn’t make it financially feasible,” he said.

From the rising cost of food to the increased cost of insurance, it all just became too much, Bland said.

“We were selling hamburgers for $17 to $18 — which is outrageous but we had to because that was our cost structure,” he said.

In touch with other restaurateurs, Bland said he’s not the only one facing the problem of continual rising costs, dating back to before the pandemic.

“We’re proud of what we did, just wish we could have done it better,” Bland said.

Sandra J. Pennecke, 757-652-5836, sandra.pennecke@pilotonline.com

https://www.dailypress.com/2025/11/11/brown-chicken-brown-cow-closes/