Recently Richard Allaire, owner of Metacom Kitchen, made a rare personal post on the restaurant’s Instagram page that resulted in a frenzy among local food aficionados.

“I have always viewed [Metacom Kitchen] as a place where the menu is always somewhat temporary and in a constant state of flux,” he wrote. “It is in this spirit of change and a desire to do new things that we have decided, after nine wonderful years, on April 22nd the restaurant will close.”

The post generated over 120 comments as of the time of this writing, primarily from people experiencing the full gamut of the stages of grief in real time at the realization that one of their favorite local dining spots was going away.

“Heartbroken,” one commenter said, summing up the feeling of a sizable portion of the posts.

Most lamented the news but simultaneously shared gratitude and wished Allaire good luck in whatever came next, and recalled fondly having some of the best meals of their lives at the unassuming establishment that used to be an Irish Pub called Tinker’s Nest before Allaire bought it in 2014.

It was an “outside the comfort zone” moment for Allaire, a North Smithfield native, who said in an interview last week that he mostly avoids interacting with social media due to the often toxic and chaotic nature of the discourse on there.

“I appreciate that Metacom was so important to people and it makes me feel like the work I was doing the last 10 years had a purpose,” he said on the public reaction. “I feel a little melancholy about it.”

His mix of emotions makes sense, considering the work and sweat equity went into establishing Metacom Kitchen as a highly rated part of Warren’s now-booming culinary scene. In fact, you could give Metacom Kitchen the accolade as being part of the foundation that began to change the reputation of that scene into what it is today — where dozens of highly rated restaurants enjoy packed houses any given night of the week, all within a short walk or bike ride from one another.

“I thought Warren was a good opportunity at the time,” Allaire said of buying the building at 322 Metacom Ave. back in 2014, which up until that point had been Tinker’s Nest Irish Pub. “It was starting to sort of develop. It’s a weird coincidence that we opened and two others opened, Eli’s and Simone’s, we all opened within six months of each other…It’s really changed. When we first opened I felt like there was some skepticism about what we were doing.”

“We had a Friday night where three people came in, looked at the menu, and left.”

But through a combination of a full kitchen rebuild, a purposeful redecoration of the interior dining space, and Allaire’s French cuisine training, he was able to accomplish what he said he set out to do in the first place — offer a fine dining experience in a place that felt accessible to everyone.

“I just wanted the restaurant to be fun. There’s something kind of joyless in some fine dining restaurants, almost like it’s stiff and sanitized and too perfect,” he said. “I wanted Metacom to deliver food that was hopefully fun and inventive and unexpected but in a setting that looked kind of like an old tavern.”

The approach worked, likely in part because nowhere else in Warren, or anywhere really, could you find a restaurant with a menu as diversified and unpredictable as Metacom; a place where each Monday you were encouraged to try a lineup of three mystery plates that were only revealed when they landed in front of you.

“I had just done a pizza place with my partners a year prior [to opening Metacom]. But I didn’t really want to do the whole pizza thing,” he said. “Metacom had been an idea that had been in me for a very long time. The last 10 years has just sort of been a purge of that idea. It’s just a combination of your past experiences mashed up into this hybrid of a casual dining neighborhood restaurant.”

So why leave while on top?
Have you ever had a favorite television series, and watched with a growing sense of dread as the seasons dragged on and, one day, you realize the show you once loved had become a hollowed out shell of what it once was?

Whether or not that would have happened with Metacom Kitchen, Allaire said that he wasn’t willing to find out.

“The reason I’m doing what I’m doing is I feel I sort of have done everything I wanted to accomplish and there’s other things I want to do. I feel like I can’t do those things and dedicate what is needed to keep it going,” he said. “What’s important to me is that I hope that the quality of the restaurant was sustained from the very beginning to the very end. The last thing I want to see is it decline.”

Allaire, above all else, is a fan of change and pushing himself in new creative directions. Rather than want to accumulate a bunch of restaurants and build a portfolio of food businesses, he wants whatever he focuses on to be the best it can be.

Allaire said that the next step will take him to historic Thames Street in Newport, where he and his former business partners from his pre-Metacom Kitchen days will reconnect to launch a seafood restaurant. He said he hoped to have that up and running by early May. He said that he will put 322 Metacom Ave. up for sale, and hopes it will go to another aspiring restauranteur or chef who wants to make a name for themself.

“I think it’s cool that Metacom has existed for a period of time, maybe it won’t exist any more, maybe someone else will come along and make it better,” he said.

As for Metacom Kitchen, he said he’ll depart Warren with a heavy but full heart; happy for the experience it provided and the memories generated by regular guests and dedicated staff. He said unlike other restaurants, which usually close because of a failure to make enough money, he’s leaving with no regrets.

“I feel like the restaurant is closing for all the right reasons,” he said. “People keep asking me, ‘Why are you closing something that is busy and successful?’ My answer is that it’s just time. I’m excited to work with other people on other projects. I’m very appreciative for the support that it’s had.”