Two Indianapolis restaurants have permanently let workers go, and one of them may be closed for good.

Kimball Musk’s restaurant group has confirmed that his Next Door American Eatery in the Meridian-Kessler neighborhood has shuttered indefinitely — for now.

“Our hope at The Kitchen Restaurant Group is that once we get through this pandemic, we can look to possibly reopen the restaurant, but right now we are closing Next Door in Indianapolis indefinitely,” according to a statement texted to IndyStar from the group’s spokeswoman Courtney Walsh.

The company has yet to say how many workers were affected.

Meantime, downtown Indy’s Punch Bowl Social has filed a state-mandated notice that it has laid off 91 workers due to "the unexpected and unforeseen business circumstances related to the COVID-19 pandemic and natural disaster."

Although the notice Punch Bowl Social provided to the Indiana Department of Workforce Development describes the layoffs as permanent, Punch Bowl Social CEO and founder Robert Thompson told IndyStar, via a spokeswoman, that the restaurant’s closure is temporary.

“Robert very specifically wanted me to convey that,” Thompson’s spokeswoman Stefanie Jones said in an email to IndyStar.

"Punch Bowl Social laid off staff when the restaurant was temporarily closed so that they could secure unemployment and have consistent income during inconsistent times. When the government allows restaurants and bars to reopen, the company will go through hiring and training of new staff," Jones said in a separate email.

Around 12,000 Indiana eating and drinking places were temporarily closed to dine-in service on March 16 thanks to the coronavirus. That left most staffers without jobs. Some 311,400 employees, about 10 percent of the state's work force, are employed in bars, restaurants and other food-service establishments, according to data from the National Restaurant Association.

Next Door and Punch Bowl Social both landed in Indianapolis during a wave of restaurant openings from mid-2016 through 2018.

In fall 2016, Musk, the younger brother of Tesla CEO Elon Musk, outlined big-impact plans for Indy's food scene. Punch Bowl Social opened around the same time.

As part of his longtime mission to bring better food to cities across the U.S., Musk started his Indianapolis developments with learning gardens that his Big Green initiative installed at dozens of Indianapolis-area schools.

Affordable, family-friendly Next Door opened in April 2018 at a former Double 8 grocery, 4573 N. College Ave. Just a month before, Musk launched finer-dining Hedge Row restaurant on Mass Ave. Both restaurants served what Musk calls “honest food” made with local ingredients.

More than a restaurant, Punch Bowl Social is a 500-seat, 23,000-square-foot complex of bars, arcades, karaoke rooms and a bowling alley. In 2105, Nation’s Restaurant News billed then-3-year-old Punch Bowl Social one of America’s top 10 “breakout brands,” meaning cutting-edge concepts capable of redefining food service.

Follow IndyStar food writer Liz Biro on Twitter: @lizbiro, Instagram: @lizbiro, and on Facebook. Call her at 317-444-6264.