The Rabbit Hole Bar & Grill closing in Merrick

Stephen Rosenbluth has been a fixture on the Nassau County restaurant scene for more than a decade but Nov. 17 is last call at his Merrick restaurant, The Rabbit Hole Bar & Grill.

"The decision was pretty simple," he said. "Not enough people coming to the restaurant — especially during the week — prices going up and not looking like they are coming down anytime soon." Add to that the challenges of a low-lying location near the water: "For the last two winters, we’ve had to deal with flooding."

When The Rabbit Hole concept debuted about a year ago, it was a reconfiguring of Rosenbluth’s Anchor Down, a seafood restaurant that opened in the Open Bay Marina in 2014. At the time of the relaunch, he told Newsday that the town’s demographics had changed, that older customers had moved away and that the new wave in Merrick was younger families, often on tighter budgets and looking for a more contemporary experience. Seafood, always a pricey proposition, no longer seemed like the best concept. And so he redecorated and created a small-plates menu with a dozen items priced $18 or less and no mains costing more than $24.

But the changes didn’t have their intended effect. "I thought a fresh concept was the way to go, but I think it might have confused people a bit," he conceded. "Initially, we backed away from seafood but then customers wanted some of the old dishes. The menu prices started going up — still lower than Anchor Down’s but not that far off. Since COVID, our sales have been going down every year, and the change didn’t slow that decline."

Rosenbluth’s career on Long Island long predated Anchor Down. In the late 1990s, he ran the kitchen at Naples 25 in Manhasset and, after Manhattan gigs including Nick & Stef's Steakhouse and Naples 45, he was executive chef at Legal Seafoods in Roosevelt Field in 2011.

Nor was the Merrick venue his only one. In 2017, he and his former wife, Jennifer Rubin, opened a Mediterranean restaurant, Cardoon, on the water in Seaford. In 2020, it became Anchor Down Dockside, which is now owned by Rubin and, as it does every year, has closed for the winter.

After the Rabbit Hole closes, he plans to take a job with a larger restaurant or hospitality group. "At the end of the day," he said. "I’m a chef, and I want to focus on cooking instead of worrying about how I’m going to pay this bill, make this deadline. I want someone else to worry about the paperwork, the licensing."

The Rabbit Hole Bar & Grill, 1960 Bayberry Ave., Merrick, 516-544-4334, therabbitholeli.com. Open Tuesday to Thursday 4:30 to 9 p.m., Friday 4:30 to 11 p.m., Saturday and Sunday 3 to 9 p.m., closed Monday.