Olympia Cafe is a Savannah and River Street institution. Their lease, however, expires at the end of 2025. Whether or not they will be granted a new one is the biggest question being asked these days. As they say, it’s complicated.

Jesse spoke to Savannah journalist Eric Curl whose beat revolves around City of Savannah Business. Their conversation reveals everything you need to know about what could become of a beloved Savannah restaurant and the reasons why.

The chat has been edited for clarity and brevity, but you can listen to the full podcast here.

Jesse Blanco: Our guest is Eric Curl, Savannah journalist….he was first to report some months ago that a Savannah favorite restaurant might be going away. Well, first of all, welcome, sir.

You reported back in May that Olympia Cafe, the fan favorite, Savannah favorite restaurant, Olympia Cafe, was in danger of closing.

Eric Curl
Right. Sure, yeah.

Jesse Blanco
Since then, there have been other reports that there’s a petition out there to try to save it and all that. Tell us going back to the beginning why it is that they could not make it into 2026.

Eric Curl
Well, back in May, I was just looking through the City’s Request for Proposals, as I do. And they had a “RFP” go out for a lease for a new tenant for the Olympia Cafe space. Essentially the lease they’ve had with Olympia Cafe, it’s been extended a couple times because the current lease goes back to like 2011 was expiring and they’re required by state law to put an RFP out there to get the highest and best use for the property since it’s publicly owned property essentially.

So they can’t just like give it off to a friend and say, hey, you can have this spot. So they have to issue these requests for proposals. And that’s essentially what they did. And that’s still ongoing process. Those proposals are due a little bit later this month. And Olympia Cafe is welcome to submit their own proposal. And it wouldn’t just be rated on cost. It would also be rated on other things, factors, quality of the proposal, what type of restaurant they’re planning on having their experience with such businesses, that sort of thing.

Jesse Blanco
But as I understand it, Olympia is free to put in a request for proposal as well, a proposal to keep the property. But that building is the Gamble Building owned by the City of Savannah, which is why we’re in this right next to City Hall.

Eric Curl
Yeah, it’s kind of a weird circumstance because usually governments don’t own buildings and lease them out to like commercial businesses. A similar thing happened like this about 10 years ago with North Beach Grill on Tybee. Everybody was riled up because that lease expired and it looked like the operators of North Beach Grill were going to get the boot and they ended up getting the lease, the new lease after all.

Jesse Blanco
But in this case, in the case of North Beach Grill, they didn’t shut down for renovations. As I understand it, the city is going to renovate the entire Gamble building, which would, I would assume, include the basement, correct?

Eric Curl
Yeah, it says in the RFP, the request for proposals that occupancy for the new tenant or if it’s Olympia, if they get it again, it wouldn’t begin until I wrote it down, third quarter of 2026.

Jesse Blanco
So whoever goes in there is going to have to wait a minute while they fix it up.

Eric Curl
Looks like it, yeah. I reached out to City about that. I don’t know if I got clear response to that when I did. But yeah, that’s what the document says, occupancy. It talks about the renovations taking place. They gotta do some like elevator work in that space and some other renovations. So it looks like whoever gets the lease regardless, it will have to be shut down for a while.

I think that current release with Olympia goes through December 31st, so they’ll be able to operate until then.

Jesse Blanco
Right, but then, so that stands to reason, let’s say Olympia submits a proposal and they’re granted that, they have to be prepared to close for, you know, up to a year. Let’s say there’s a little bit of an overrun, they could be closed for a year.

Eric Curl
Yeah, the way projects take in here, never really seem to get completed on their expected, so it could be a while.

Jesse Blanco
And I don’t know how many businesses out there would be interested in doing that, especially if you’re there already. You know, it’s not like there’s insurance for that. It’s not like there was a natural disaster.

Eric Curl
Yeah, that’s a point. Yeah, from the operating end, they’ll just be kind of sitting there. Kind of what are their employees going to do at that time?

Jesse Blanco
You gotta do something. I don’t think they’re going to be selling kebabs out on the sidewalk across the street. You know, I make light of it, but…..

True or false? Is it a greater predicament for them being the tenant right now than it would be for someone on the outside who’s granted the lease? They can prepare to wait a year, just take over at that point, right?

Eric Curl
Right.

I guess it’s kind of a risk that all businesses take when they operate in a building that they don’t own. You can never really control what the owner wants to do with it and how long you’re going to stay there once your initial agreement expires and all that.

Jesse Blanco
How dare you speak logically?

Same as Moon River Brewing Company. Everybody hated to see that close, but the person who owns the building can do whatever they want with it. Which brings us to this petition. I saw it. didn’t read anything. I saw the headline. There was a petition. Even if they got a million signatures, it’s my building. I’m going to do with it what I want. Isn’t that kind how…

Eric Curl
Well, in this case, the city’s required by state law to issue the RFP to request competitors. Make it fair for everybody.

Jesse Blanco
Right. And if they didn’t, you know, I had someone tell me this morning, they’re just trying to put one, some, some politician’s crony in there to know that the whole point of the RFP is to get maximum market value for it, right?

Eric Curl
Yeah, I mean, once those RFPs are submitted and they make their decision, they become open to the public. So if there are any shenanigans going on, you should be able to look at them. And I will be looking at them. But you can look at the requests and what the other, if there are competitors, maybe everybody knows that this is an Olympic cafe. Everybody loves the Olympia Cafe and they’re not going to bother. But you’re the restaurant expert on this. You probably know better than me.

Jesse Blanco

When is there a deadline for the RFPs to be submitted?

Eric Curl
Yeah, it’s later this month. think it’s like, I think it’s like the 18th. It’s been out there since May. So it’s been a good while. They actually extended the deadline a little bit. I’m not sure why, but it was originally due like last month.

Jesse Blanco
So we will know shortly thereafter how many they’ve gotten and what those proposals are.

Eric Curl
Yep, they usually publish that if not the day they get the proposals the day after. That’s all listed on their website and all that. So I’ll be checking that.

Jesse Blanco
last one i’ll let you go have you spoken to to anyone at Olympia owners?

Eric Curl
I reached out to them, they never got back. Mostly I did hear back after I wrote my article. She liked the article. One of the daughters liked the article, but they did seem a little concerned about the leasing aspect of it.

Jesse Blanco
Yeah, I mean you’re always fair with everything that you write at savannahagenda.com. You just report the facts. That’s what we as journalists always do and sometimes it doesn’t fit with what people’s preconceived notion is so they get mad. But the facts are the facts. This is what it is. We’ll see what happens, right?

Eric Curl
Yeah

Jesse Blanco
Okay. Well, we will find out soon after that if Olympia even submitted a bit. They might not. We will see. Thank you, sir, for taking…

Eric Curl
Yeah. Well, then they definitely want to get it they don’t submit a proposal.

Jesse Blanco
Correct. But then it goes back to what I was saying before about, you know, if they submit a proposal, they have to be prepared to sit for a year with no revenue. I don’t know who has it advertised. They could say the city could say third quarter all they want. If it were me, I’d be prepared for a year if not longer. that’s the unfortunate part of this. All right. Thank you so much, sir. Eric Curl, savannahagenda.com. We’ll talk to you soon.

Eric Curl
Yeah, that’s true. Yeah, I didn’t even think about that. just feel like, yeah, that’s, that’d be tough. That’d be tough.

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