Nancy’s Home Cooking, which has served Clintonville since 1968, is closing its 3133 N. High St. location because of problems with the building. The diner will move Downtown after failing to find another Clintonville site, although owner Rick Hahn said he hopes to return to the neighborhood.

Nancy’s Home Cooking, which has been serving up biscuits, burgers and bologna for more than half a century, is leaving Clintonville.

The diner will shutter its 3133 N. High St. location on March 8. Three or four weeks later, it expects to open in the former site of Jack’s Diner at 52 E. Lynn St. Downtown.

Nancy’s owner Rick Hahn announced the decision Monday on Facebook.

"My heart is broke and aching, but I’m excited for the new location because it’s bigger and seats twice as many people as High Street," he wrote. "It was the only option for us at this time."

In an emotional 16-minute Facebook video, Hahn described the decision as "bittersweet and upsetting."

He said unspecified problems with the space he leases in the High Street building, erected in 1920, forced the decision.

"It’s old, it’s aged, and there’s just a lot of things we can’t do to it," he said. "It’s affecting our ability to operate."

Hahn said he spent 2019 looking for a new Clintonville location, but all options "fell short," in part because of costs.

"We’re just a small little diner on a beer budget," he said.

He said he also had no luck in Worthington and Upper Arlington.

"It’s upsetting because I have quite the sentimental attachment to that restaurant because of my late wife and her aunt," he said.

Cindy King, the aunt of Hahn’s wife, Sheila, opened Nancy’s in 1968. She closed the restaurant in 2009, but after community volunteers rallied to help renovate it, Sheila Hahn reopened Nancy’s nine months later.

After Sheila’s death in 2012, Rick Hahn carried on.

In the Facebook posting, he described how much Clintonville has meant to the restaurant. He said he did not want to move Downtown but felt he had no choice, and he hopes to return to Clintonville.

"I’ve thought on this and sat on this for a while, and it’s come to this point in the road — where, in order for Nancy’s to be around, to stay, we have to move," he said. "It’s not where I want to move to ...

"While we’re Downtown, we will continue to look to get back to Clintonville to get to a new spot … I promise you we will be looking to try to get back to Clintonville in some fashion."

Hahn said he expects the diner’s menu — heavy with breakfast-all-day offerings — to remain the same Downtown. In honor of the previous tenant, Hahn said he will add some menu items from Jack’s Diner.

The former Jack’s space seats 60, twice as many as Nancy’s, he said.

Nancy’s will drop weekend hours in its Downtown site and instead will be open Monday through Friday from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. Hahn said Nancy’s eight employees will make the transition to Downtown and that he might add one or two.

Hahn stressed that Nancy’s civic activities, including its Pay It Forward program, will remain unchanged.

But he made it clear that things won’t be the same at Nancy’s.

"It’s a new page we have to turn to, and we have to stay going," he said. "It’s really heartbreaking because I want to stay here, but it’s just really not in the cards."

jweiker@dispatch.com

@JimWeiker