D.C. restaurant closures in 2025 are on pace to surpass last year's record

Washington Business Journal | By Daniel J. Sernovitz | July 23, 2025

An estimated 53 restaurants have closed in D.C. since the first of the year, nearly twice as many as shuttered in the same time period for the past two years, according to mid-year data from the Restaurant Association Metropolitan Washington.

At the current pace, closings could surpass 100 by the end of the year, well in excess of the record-setting 73 closures last year, per RAMW.

Shawn Townsend, president and CEO of RAMW, blamed the rise in closures on increased labor costs tied to Initiative 82, the D.C. law that phases out the tipped minimum wage for servers and shifts the full burden of a worker's wages to the employer.

"Overwhelmingly, the increase in labor costs has driven folks to decide to close their doors," Shawn Townsend, president and CEO of RAMW, said in an interview. "We hear, and we see, Initiative 82 being used as the reason why restaurants are closing, time and time again, and I just question nonbelievers of that. At what point do we start to believe Initiative 82 has impacted them to the point where they had to close?"