The city of Chattanooga has posted a sign on the Shuford's barbecue restaurant on Signal Mountain Road, calling it a "dangerous" structure after a mudslide leveled the business next door.
Madison Davis, daughter of Shuford's business owner Jeff Davis, said Wednesday that the sign was posted on Tuesday at the eatery that has operated for 33 years at the foot of Signal Mountain.
Shuford's had stopped serving take-out orders on Wednesday, but the eatery may resume those, according to the restaurant.
Davis said that the Shuford's restaurant at 11320 Dayton Pike in Soddy-Daisy will remain open.
Staff photo by Mike Pare / Shuford's barbecue restaurant sits on Signal Mountain Road while the collapsed roof of a former Subway in shown in the foreground. The city has termed the Shuford's building a 'dangerous' structure.Late last month, the mudslide caused the Subway restaurant next door to collapse. No one was in the building when it was demolished by the slide. The rubble still sits at the site.
While a sign on the Shuford's building says it is "condemned," city spokeswoman Richel Albright said it's more accurate to refer to it as "a dangerous structure." She said "condemned" isn't used in the city code.
Albright said that while the building is closed to the general public, the city has worked with the owner to allow him to enter it to continue to operate catering orders and take-out.
"I have not been told he must stop pick-up orders," she said on Wednesday.
However, Albright said, the business owner is inside the building "under his own volition."
"Both city and [Hamilton] county personnel looked at the bank and felt it is unstable and has the potential to jeopardize the safety of the public that might visit the restaurant," Albright said.
She said the property owner must hire an engineer to assess the bank behind the building that the city is concerned about.
Duane Shelton, manager of the Glendale Courts efficiency apartments next door to Shuford's, said he has been informed that its buildings don't have a problem.
But he said he's sorry Shuford's has an issue because he eats there once every couple of weeks.
"It's bad luck," Shelton said about the Shuford's and Subway restaurants.
He said that his buildings are having to deal with water issues because of all the rain the Chattanooga area has experienced.
Mother Nature dumped a record high rainfall on the Tennessee Valley in February following the wettest year on record in 2018, according to the National Weather Service.
Contact Mike Pare at mpare@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6318. Follow him on Twitter @MikePareTFP.