Venue Bistro closes in Highland

Earlier this year, in April, the staff from Venue, a New American restaurant in Highland, took a few days off to go on a fishing sabbatical. And now it appears that the sabbatical has turned into a permanent vacation.

See also:

- Chef and Tell with James Rugile of Venue - James Rugile is leaving his exec-chef post at Venue to work with Frank Bonanno

We've heard rumblings for the past month that owner Holly Hartnett, a former manager at Table 6, was shuttering her restaurant, which opened in 2008, and yesterday, those predictions became a concrete reality. The doors are locked and the signage has been removed, the windows are draped with brown paper, the voice-mail mailbox is full, the website gone, and reservations are no longer being accepted on OpenTable -- all telltale signs that Venue, whose kitchen was graced by several well-known chefs, including James Rugile (now at Mizuna), is kaput.

The space, of course, is prime real estate, its enviable location smack-dab in the center of Highland, which means it's not likely to stay empty for long.