Although the Ironton location of CR Thomas' Old Place may be closed, a spokesperson for the chain says it is not a permanent situation.

Beginning Sunday, no customers were being seated at the Ironton eatery at 124 S. Second St., but Charles Thomas, a spokesperson for the business, said that the doors were shut not due to financial troubles, but to allow the owners to "spruce the place up."

"We're not closing down, no," Thomas said. "We're closing it up to clean it up and give it a new facelift, and so on and so forth."

Thomas declined to give a specific time frame for when the restaurant would be reopened; saying that he wasn't sure how long the renovation would take.

"There's a lot of cleaning to be done there, inside and out," Thomas said. "We've wanted to do it for quite some time, that's an old store, the thing's over 100 years old."

Over the last year, the CR Thomas' Old Place chain has been plagued by several bits of bad luck.

At the end of last year, the owners were sued in Lawrence County Common Pleas Court by T II LLC, of Grand Rapids, Mich., for nearly $100,000 worth of goods for which the company claimed it was never paid.

Around the same time, the Ashland, Ky., location of the restaurant closed.

On June 6 of this year, the recently opened Huntington location of CR Thomas' was closed without notice with a sign alleging the business was closed for maintenance.

Six employees of that location are suing the owners of the chain for three pay periods of lost wages in Cabell County Circuit Court. The employees are seeking around $6,000 a piece.

Thomas said Wednesday that the Huntington location of the restaurant would be relocated.