ANDOVER – West Side Deli will be closing its doors for good Friday, Jan. 23, after owner Rick Brest was told it would cost around $60,000 to install a vent hood system to cook inside the converted covered bridge.
“Unfortunately, this will be our last week of operation at the covered bridge so Friday, Jan. 23, 2026 will be our last day of operation,” Brest posted to the restaurant’s Facebook page.
In a telephone interview, Brest confirmed the post, adding he had gotten three bids from separate companies to install a vent hood with an Ansel fire system and all had come in at about $60,000.
Since West Side Deli opened, cooks have worked under a temporary permit, cooking outside the restaurant in a tent until Brest could secure the proper permitting to move inside.
Brest said the cost comes down to the state requiring an engineer to sign off on the vent hood/firefighting system – and that requires a state-certified installer. In his Pennsylvania restaurants, he said he can have the same work done for $8,000.
“We work paycheck-to-paycheck,” Brest said.
As an aside, Brest said he’d also run into significant trouble trying to find a company to insure the restaurant, due to being set up inside a converted covered bridge, finally finding one carrier based in California.
The staff at West Side Deli have been “awesome” about working in the tent, but Brest said he can’t keep asking them to work outdoors when the temperatures continue to linger in the single digits, as they were the day of his interview with The Gazette.
There’s also the fact that the single most popular menu item West Side Deli sells is its Philly cheesesteak – which requires a grill – which requires a vent hood to draw out smoke and a fire-suppression system in case of an emergency – which requires a prohibitive capital investment, according to Brest.
Brest said he’d run into similar problems trying to open in a building on the Square: an “old-school” building that lacked the modern infrastructure needed to operate within safety regulations and requiring pricey upgrades.
The owner of the building allowed Brest to pull out of the purchase, he said, after he explained the problems he was encountering getting the location up to code.
West Side Deli was a popular spot in Andover, and recently hosted and served about 250 people during a free community Thanksgiving dinner.
People could come into the restaurant, sit down and place an order with volunteer waitstaff who took their order, got their drinks and placed the order with an assembly line of kitchen workers.
Local businesses made donations of turkeys, vegetables, propane, desserts and cash to make the community dinner happen.
