Tulum reopens Carriage House Dr. location after nearly a year

JACKSON, TENN (WNBJ)-

What was supposed to be just a couple of days closed for remodeling quickly became almost a year of closing the doors at Tulum on carriage house drive, that's because of worker shortages.

“Last August, we had a few structural issues with some loose tile that was a safety hazard in the kitchen. And we decided to shut down for a couple of days and get that fix and pop right back," said Tulum owner Daryl Fortner.

After working on the kitchen, they discovered other issues that caused them to be close for longer Fortner said, “This is the beginning of the sort of the job market crunch. So a lot of people went and explored other options and we lost a few of them. And then we've down. So we find ourselves not able to reopen ….we said we know what, we're gonna make a few more changes and we'll take our time.”

During this time, the Union University Drive location continued to serve the community.

“Luckily for us, we have the other location. We can kind of shift the business to. And who knows what would have happened if we didn't have that,” said Fortner.

The second location was able to handle the extra business, but the road to reopening the original location was a bumpy one.

Fortner said, “The last 11 months, it's like pulling teeth. It felt like nobody wanted a job…and no matter what we were doing, we couldn't seem to find anybody. But now, certain it seems to be loosening up quite a bit. So we're very fortunate in that regard that we're able to find more than we need, to be honest.”

Some of the planned remodeling and menu changes are not complete, but Fortner said they wanted to take the opportunity to open now that they have enough staff.