After 10 years in business, The Roost Sports Bar & Café is closing its doors for good this month. 

Owner Ralph Skrzypczak on Monday announced the restaurant’s plans to close after a last day of operation Dec. 22.

“And that’s a wrap! Dad and I are leaving the restaurant and bar game,” Skrzypczak said. “Thank you all for the support and love over the years! We hope to see you over the next three weeks as we celebrate the holiday seasons and all the great memories.” 

Skrzypczak said “big changes” are going down with “new people” coming in Jan. 1. 

Four sources who contacted InMaricopa said a new Mexican restaurant was planned. 

One person with knowledge of the acquisition said Mesa-based Chilaquiles Modern Kitchen was locating at the former Roost space at 20800 N. John Wayne Parkway, Suite 101, in The Shops at Maricopa Fiesta. 

What becomes of The Roost’s staff is unknown. 

When InMaricopa interviewed Skrzypczak in December 2023, he said the business had a “lean” staff of 25, down from 50 before the pandemic. 

“I need to spend more time with family,” Skrzypczak said in a video post announcing the closure, which was uploaded to the social networking site Nextdoor. He said he and his father, John, wanted to write books and have been working on a marketing app “that we’re really proud of.”  

Before it became The Roost, the sports bar was then known as True Grit Tavern, a tip of the cowboy hat to the popular 1969 John Wayne flick True Grit. 

Skrzypczak, who jokes about his last name being a good online password, remembers well the struggles of starting up the business in a strip mall. 

That was a few years before entrepreneur Jon Taffer’s reality TV show, Bar Rescue, renamed it The Roost. It is a branding that Skrzypczak interprets to mean a place where anyone can come in and hang out. 

The eighth season of Bar Rescue covers The Roost’s revamp travails, focusing much on Skrzypczak himself. Almost overnight, exposure from the show tripled The Roost’s business. 

Skrzypczak first planned to open a dispensary in Colorado after recreational cannabis was voter-approved there. 

The Roost also survived the pandemic years beginning with a total restructuring in 2020 when most restaurants shuttered for months or more. The Roost closed down for two weeks. 

Skrzypczak had just expanded the business and there were loans to pay. But grocery stores were also running out of the products he needed to sustain the business. He recalled resorting to giving away free toilet paper rolls with each order. 

“The toilet paper shortage had already started, and then the meats and grains had already started to slow down too, or at least you couldn’t get them from the shelves,” he said.