Owner: Williamsburg restaurant to close due to L train shutdown

A Williamsburg restaurant will close its doors after nearly a decade of business because of the looming L train shutdown, owners say.
The Brooklyn Star will close its doors on June 3.
Employees agree it's heartbreaking, but with the L train shutdown just a year away, they wanted to go out gracefully.
Owner and head chef Joaquin Baca says his business felt hurt on some weekends when the L train wasn’t running, and he can only image what it would feel like when the train isn’t running at all.
"We're trying to make this happen on our own terms. The neighborhood has changed a little bit and with the inevitable L train shutdown and wages going up next year, we just found our business unsustainable,” Baca says.
The Brooklyn Star is only a stone's throw from the Lorimer Street stop—where many of its customers get off the train.
“We've always had a very good contingency of Manhattan clientele and we're afraid we might not be able to rely on those customers anymore as a certain percentage of our sales," Baca says.
Frequent customers are making the most of the time left, while Baca says he has plans to open another restaurant in Brooklyn.