ST. CLAIRSVILLE – It wasn’t an easy decision for Tim O’Mara and the team at O’Mara Enterprises Inc. of Steubenville to close the Bonanza Restaurant at the Ohio Valley Mall in St. Clairsville this past weekend.

The national franchise’s location at the mall first opened its doors in 1980. For nearly three decades, Bonanza served its cafeteria and buffet-style steakhouse fare to loyal patrons in the area, but on Sunday afternoon, the doors to the restaurant were closed for good.

“It’s a tough business decision,” said O’Mara. “This kind of decision is particularly tough when people’s lives are affected.”

Three managers and 16 employees were working at Bonanza when the restaurant announced its closing last week. O’Mara said nearly 75 percent of those people were long-term employees with many years of service at the restaurant.

“That makes it extremely difficult,” said O’Mara, who visited the store this past weekend to thank the staff and the customers in person.

“We’re not the only ones in this situation, and we won’t be the last,” he said.

Bonanza’s lease at the mall expired this week. Initially, there were talks to renegotiate Bonanza’s lease at the mall, but many factors played into the company’s decision to shut the business down, O’Mara explained.

At one point, O’Mara Enterprises Inc. operated as many as 17 Bonanza restaurants in the region. In the early days, the chain offered items like ribeye steaks for a price a low as $1.99, O’Mara recalled.

Times have since changed, as has the economy, he noted. In more recent years, O’Mara has closed all of those Bonanza restaurants with the exception of two – one in Cambridge and one in Washington, Pa. – which have since been converted to U.S.A. Steak Buffet restaurants.

The St. Clairsville restaurant was the last Bonanza operated by O’Mara Enterprises and the last franchise of its kind in the Ohio Valley region.

The company had considered making a conversion to a U.S.A. Steak Buffet at the St. Clairsville site, O’Mara said, but the cost of a major renovation that would have been necessary, combined with factors like the still struggling economy, rising costs of food, stiff competition by restaurants both in St. Clairsville and at The Highlands, and the changing market, a decision had to be made that would be a sound one for the company.

“We had to take all things into consideration,” said O’Mara. “We’d like to thank everyone for their loyal support and for their patronage over the years.”

Ayres can be reached at eayres@timesleaderonline.com