The popular Hi-Tops sports bar and restaurant ended its seven-year run on the North Shore on Sunday night -- falling victim, a spokesman said, to poor quality baseball as well as financial troubles.
"We've been here for the worst six years in the history of the Pirates," Harold Rothstein, an operating consultant, said this afternoon at the empty business on Federal Street.
Sixty-five employees were let go as of Sunday's closing time, but given up to a month's severance pay, he said.
During the day, customers arrived before and after the Pirates' day game, "and they were here to watch the Steelers' debacle later," he said.
The restaurant's owner, Hi-Tops Pittsburgh USA LP, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization in March. Rothstein said high rent and pressure from a lender were other major factors in the business's problems. The business made an unsuccessful attempt recently to buy its building.
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