Applebee’s SH-152 location closes

By Jacob Sturm
[email protected]

Applebee’s Grill and Bar Restaurant, located next door to IHOP and Zaxby’s off State Highway
152, is closing its doors as of April 28.

The restaurant, which has been in Mustang since 2013, made the announcement with a sign
being placed on the door of the location.

Melissa Helsel, the Community Development Director at the City of Mustang, learned of the
information Friday, April 25. She said the property has not changed ownership since the doors
closed, and there have not been any business license’ submitted for a new restaurant to take
over as of yet.

For the time being, the space will be vacant.

“We have not yet, as a city, incentivized a restaurant,” Helsel said. “We have incentive
programs with large retailers that have to meet certain goals in order to qualify for the
incentives. We have not incentivized a restaurant because there are so many, and how would
one restaurant feel if we incentivized another. We want to be fair to all of the restaurants.”

Helsel said she hopes for an update on the property as soon as possible. She said it is also nice
for the city to have all of its current buildings full.

She said there has already been interest expressed as of Monday. For the City of Mustang, that
next step could be a business owner approaching them with a business license when a tenant is
found through the ownership of the land.

If that happened to be a restaurant, the infrastructure would already be in place due to the old
Applebee’s Grill and Bar location having served in that capacity.

Once a business license is applied for, the Chief Building Official and the Fire Marshal would
each be on call to do an inspection of the property.

“As of now we don’t have any applications in that building,” Helsel said. “But it hasn’t changed
ownership.”