Dusty Trail, a restaurant that opened its doors in 2017 following the sale and renovation of the former Black Iron Grill building at the Hwy. 136 and Interstate 29 intersection east of Rock Port, is closing its doors for one final time. The restaurant is owned by Karen Brown.

The following statement was published on the Dusty Trail Facebook page:

“To our family, friends, and customers . . .

“To say the last eight years have been hard would be an understatement. Since opening in December 2017, this dream of creating and operating a restaurant like no other has been a hard fought battle. In 2018, we were getting our sea legs in our first year open. In 2019, we spent 75% of the year riding the rollercoaster of being cut off from customers in three directions due to a ‘once in a century flood’ (that had already happened two previous times in less than 30 years). In 2020, we were optimistic that we were on the upward slope only to be knocked back with the pandemic that closed us for three years.

“Reopening in 2023, we felt like this was our time to shine. To finally take off and grow Dusty Trail into the restaurant we always dreamed it could be. Unfortunately, two years later, we have hit the ground with a hard thud. As much as we’d like to believe that hard work can make anything happen, it has become a harsh reality that we cannot make Dusty Trail ‘work.’ There is no one reason it didn’t work out – some reasons were beyond our control and other reasons that were within our control, but we always tried to make the right decisions with the information we had available. This is not just our loss – it is a loss for our employees and our community, too. To those people, we are so sorry we cannot keep going.”

Sunday, March 30, will be their final day of operation.