A long-time Muncie restaurant is selling the business, according to a Facebook post Wednesday.
Owners of Burkie’s Drive In, located at 1515 W. Jackson St., posted on Facebook around 11 a.m. that the business has been sold to a “development group” and will be torn down and replaced with a parking structure.
The post reads, “Good morning Muncie. The time has come for the big reveal. I would like to say sorry to all the patron that has supported us in the adventure. I'm Sorry everybody has ruined it for you, but Burkies has been sold to a development group. They are going to be bulldozing it when the deal is done and a parking structure is going to be erected. Storage units will be on the site as well for rent. Thanks again to our loyal customers who enjoyed their food and loved coming in. We loved having u. To the other who want to believe a liar and a snake about how we treat people and we are bad people well they are paving paradise and putting up a parking lot.”
A later comment stated the last day the restaurant will remain open is Saturday. The post and Facebook page has since been deleted and Burkies owners would not share the name of the developer with The Daily News.
On Wednesday, Jonah Sizemore, one of the business owners, told The Daily News the owners plan to have a press conference about the closing, but he didn’t yet know a date or time.
Sizemore did tell The Daily News, “If you guys want to put anything, you can quote me saying the property has been sold and that’s all I’m going to talk about, the property, at this time. It is sold and that’s it.”
The supposed sale comes days after screenshots of a recent Facebook the owners made were shared on social media.
While some posts have been deleted by the Burkie’s Drive In page, screenshots show the restaurant owners calling people numerous expletives and saying “srry we don’t do drugs like the rest of this town.”
A screenshot of a post saying the restaurant will sell its sign for $15,000 and a post of a police report regarding a former employee was also posted to social media.
A copy of the police report states that Troy Stovall, an owner of Burkie’s, thought that a former employee took money after she was fired.
According to the report, the former employee said she “threw the money inside before she left,” but Stovall said the former employee didn’t turn in the money.
A police report also states that Stovall was concerned the former employee would “sell information” that he was a registered sex offender.
Records show that Stovall is registered as a sex offender, and has been since 1999.
The Daily News is working to update this story.
Contact Andrew Smith with comments at ajsmith15@bsu.edu or on Twitter @AndrewSmithNews.
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