Farmer's Creekside Tavern & Inn, a destination restaurant set in a historic building in Le Roy, Genesee County, has closed.

"It's heartbreaking," said Sarah Farmer, who owns and runs the restaurant with her husband, Billy Farmer. "It's absolutely terrible. I've shed so many tears."

Farmer's Creekside opened in 2017. It was the culmination of a 10-year project to restore a 200-year-old building that had been almost completely destroyed by fire in 2004.

Bill Farmer, who owns owner of Catenary Construction Corp., first encountered the building while he was estimating the cost to rebuild it after the fire. It is made of irregular pieces of dark gray Marcellus shale and sits alongside Oatka Creek. Farmer could see the building's potential even though it would be a huge undertaking.

On the day Farmer purchased the building in 2007, one of its walls collapsed. That kicked off his decade-long "labor of love." In the end, not much remained of the original building: the shale walls, about 100 square feet of original floor, a fireplace, some window boxes and the two front entrances. But he managed to create inviting spaces that seamlessly blended the new with the old in a 10,000-square-foot building that now has two bars, a fine dining restaurant, a three-room inn and more.

"We joke that it's his masterpiece," Sarah Farmer said.

With the building complete, a separate family business owned by Billy and Sarah Farmer, Bill's son and daughter-and-law, owned and ran the fine dining restaurant.

Farmer's Creekside got rave reviews. It even thrived during the pandemic by offering waterfront dining in igloos that sat eight. Those would prove to be a perennial attraction during winter months.

But running a restaurant along with the couple's other businesses -- a construction company and a property management company -- proved daunting.

Farmer's Creekside requires a large staff, which was not easy to come by in a small town 30 minutes from Rochester, even when they were paying above-average wages, according to Farmer. When staff members would miss work due to illness, car trouble or inclement weather, service would suffer.

"We couldn't provide the experience to the level that my family and I had set from the beginning," she said.

"It's been the hardest decision because it wasn't rent or the building or money," she said. "It was really time. We couldn't give it the time it needed because we couldn't get the staff to help us run it."

The family is deciding what's next for the building and the business, but in the meantime, Farmer hopes the community will remember the family for its loving restoration of the 200-year-old tavern.

"We are going out on such a high level with so many incredible memories," she said.

"I'd rather people remember it for what it was. Places like Creekside are very special, but I don't know that they are sustainable in today's environment."

Tracy Schuhmacher has been covering Rochester's food scene full time since 2015. Send questions and tips to her at [email protected].