Faison restaurant closed by state for tax bill
By Staff Reports
Published in News on May 24, 2015 1:50 AM
FAISON -- The popular Southern Exposure restaurant was shuttered Tuesday after being seized by the state Department of Revenue for failure to pay state sales tax.
According to published reports, the restaurant is nearly $16,000 in arrears on its state sales tax payment.
The following was posted Wednesday at 1:26 p.m. on the restaurant's Facebook page, "Southern Exposure has closed it doors. Effective immediately! Sorry for any inconvenience! Much love to all our supporters."
It was also posted on Facebook that owners, Sarah McColman and Joani Babcock, had planned to close the restaurant at the end of the month.
"We hung in there for 11 years, Sarah and myself are very proud of all of our accomplishments," the posting reads. "We organized and had the liquor vote pass. We helped put Faison on the map.
"There are several issues that caused this to happen. We have spent thousand of dollars on water filtration. Equipment failures, the restaurant had been flooded five times. We never seemed to catch up after the recession of '08, the equipment is getting old and it costs to replace these things. All the rumors we were closing. We were going to try and go two more years. Can't do it."