Capers on Park Avenue closing; Artists on the Bluff staying

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After two years, the Capers on Park Avenue restaurant is leaving the Artists on the Bluff facility in Bluff Park, owner and chef Jay Roberson said.

But rumors that the Hoover school system is getting ready to shut down Artists on the Bluff are not true, Superintendent Kathy Murphy and school board President Stephen Presley said today.

Murphy said she did decide that the school system no longer can afford to pay for utilities for Artists on the Bluff, but she has great respect for the various entities that operate there.

That includes the artists that maintain studios there, the Hoover Historical Society and the Capers on Park Avenue restaurant, she said.

But the school system, which owns the former Bluff Park School property, has to be thoughtful and savvy with taxpayer funds, Murphy said.

Utilities for the building were running about $70,000 a year and jumped up to about $90,000 a year after Capers on Park Avenue opened, said Tina Hancock, the school system’s chief financial officer.

That’s more than enough to cover a teacher’s salary and benefits, Murphy said.

“Artists on the Bluff is embraced by Bluff Park, embraced by the board and embraced by me,” Murphy said. “But I can’t pay your utilities, even if you are a nonprofit.”

Linda Williams, the volunteer director for Artists on the Bluff, said she agrees that the organization, which collects rent from artists and Capers on Park Avenue, absolutely should pay the utilities for the building.

Her organization now is working with the school system to come up with a formal lease agreement. The group never had a written agreement with Hoover City Schools, Williams said. It was just a verbal agreement worked out between former Superintendent Andy Craig, the artist group and the city of Hoover, she said.

That agreement called for the school system to pay the utilities and the city to pay for building improvements to make the arts facility a reality, Williams said.

The facility has become a great success as a location for art classes and working studios for artists, and people from other states have come to visit to see how it operates, she said. “We have something that no one else has done before,” she said.

The arts group had wanted a coffee shop or restaurant to help bring traffic to the facility. Roberson, a seasoned chef who had experience at The Summit Club, Riverchase Country Club and his own restaurant called Capers Comfort Foods in Alabaster, stepped in and opened in July 2015.

Roberson, who grew up in Bluff Park and went to school in the building that now houses his business, said he loved the idea of running a restaurant and catering business there and helping the arts at the same time. But numerous factors played into his decision to leave, he said.

Having to pay for all the utilities pushed his rent out of his range, he said. Plus, he really has outgrown the space, he said.

“They originally brought me in here to bring in foot traffic, but I brought too much foot traffic,” he said.

The restaurant portion of his business is only open three hours a day, five days a week, but at lunchtime, it gets so busy that the parking situation is dangerous, he said. There is limited parking, and it frequently gets maxed out at lunchtime, he said. He averages about 150 to 160 customers a day and had about 425 on Mother’s Day, he said.

There were discussions about adding parking spaces, but no guarantees, Roberson said. With the increased rent, parking problems and the fact that school officials would not offer a lease agreement to Artists on the Bluff beyond two years, “the numbers weren’t going to work out for me,” he said.

He could raise prices, but he didn’t want to do that, he said. His lease ends on June 30, so he decided to move, he said.

Roberson said he’s eyeing a space at Shades Mountain Plaza, a spot in Vestavia Hills or possibly doing something at the new Linger Longer Brews coffee shop and Yellow Door Market gift shop getting ready to open this summer at a house across from Tip Top Grill.

He and his employees will take a week or two off in July, and he’ll make some decisions about where he will go, he said.