Downtown Vancouver is losing one of its date-night darlings. The Sedgwick, the McCusker family’s supper club on Main Street, will serve its last small plates this Friday after nearly five years, a casualty of soaring rent and spiking food and fuel costs that owners say finally broke the math.
The closure lands at a rough time for Main Street businesses already trying to survive months of torn-up pavement and detours from the city’s streetscape overhaul.
Co-owner Melissa McCusker told The Columbian that the Main Street Promise construction project has drained customer traffic from many downtown storefronts, and that relentless jumps in ingredient and fuel prices left The Sedgwick on the wrong side of the ledger. She described eye-popping cost hikes: shishito peppers that once ran about $30 a case now closer to $130, and tomatoes jumping from roughly $30–$40 a case to more than $100. A “significant rent increase,” she said, helped seal the decision to call it quits.
Main Street construction has squeezed downtown foot traffic
The city-led Main Street Promise rebuild, which kicked off in early 2025, has brought phased street and utility work that has periodically closed blocks and rerouted cars and pedestrians through downtown, city materials show. As outlined by the City of Vancouver, the multi-block project is designed to turn Main Street into a more walkable, people-friendly corridor. In the short term, though, the rotating closures and utility trenches have meant some regulars simply are not fighting their way to their usual haunts.
Owners will double down on Feast 316 in Camas
The McCuskers told The Columbian they plan to concentrate their energy on Feast 316 in Camas and hope to shift some Sedgwick employees there. Feast 316 is still listing its Camas location, reservations and catering options online, a clear signal that the family is consolidating their efforts across the river from downtown Vancouver.
What the closure says about downtown dining
The Sedgwick’s exit adds one more twist to a Vancouver dining scene already in motion, as new development, remote work habits and rising operating costs reshape when and where diners are willing to splurge, according to coverage and local guides such as Eater Portland. Local organizations, including the Vancouver Downtown Association, have tried to soften the blow of the Main Street rebuild with grants, marketing pushes and technical support for business owners, and the VDA’s resource pages outline those efforts for operators still hanging on…