It seemed a bit of a departure last fall when the Neighborhood Dining Group (NDG) announced it was converting its Husk Greenville restaurant, which had been closed since the pandemic lockdowns in the spring of 2020, into a new concept called Husk Barbeque.

At the time, NDG President David Howard called it “a natural evolution for the Husk brand” and described the goal as “to apply our long-standing focus of cooking delicious food with passion and serving it in a more casual, relaxed, and affordable setting.” Indeed, many other fine dining restaurants across the country had pivoted to a barbecue offering in the depths of the pandemic, in large part because the format is well suited for take-out orders and outdoor dining.

In this case the pivot doesn’t seem to have taken. Sunday was the last night of service for Husk Barbeque, and the restaurant announced on its website that it has closed permanently. “The efforts in Greenville have not yielded the success we had hoped,” a statement on the site explains, “and Covid has only exasperated our ability to staff and operate a restaurant.”

With the departure of Husk Barbeque, five restaurants remain active in the NDG stable: the three Husk Restaurants in Charleston, Savannah, and Nashville as well as Minero in Atlanta and Delaney Oyster House in Charleston. A new Minero is in the works for Charleston, coming later this year to the James Island location formerly occupied by French restaurant The Fat Hen.

We’ve reached out to NDG for more details on the plans for the Greenville site and will update this story as we learn more.