It has been reported that the Five Guys burger joint located at 318 E Fairmount Ave, Ste 200a, in the mall will reportedly close soon.

Speaking on the condition of anonymity, a worker at the Five Guys mall location told The Post-Journal that the store would be closing soon. “Our last day of being open is Dec. 28,” the employee said. “Yes, it’s true.”

According to an Aug. 17, 2014, Post-Journal article, The Five Guys mall location has an exterior entrance as well as an interior entrance at the mall and covers approximately 2,500 square feet. The exterior entrance allows the restaurant to keep its own hours, rather than the mall’s hours. Additionally, the store employed approximately 40-50 employees initially. At the time of the store’s opening it initially hired r six full-time managers and 25 full-time positions as well as 20 to 25 part-time positions.

Five Guys is a franchise chain of restaurants, focused on hamburgers, hot dogs, and French fries, shakes and soft drinks. The corporation is headquartered in Alexandria, Va., and was founded in 1986. The burger chain reports that it has more than 1,700 locations in the United States and 24 other countries, with 5,000 employees, according to fiveguys.com.

Five Guys restaurant, located at 318 E. Fairmount Ave., in the Chautauqua Mall, is reportedly scheduled to shutter operations Dec. 28. P-J photo by Christopher Blakeslee

When requesting comment from the Five Guys employee interviewed, the employee said to contact the corporate headquarters instead. A phone call requesting a return call and a contact card requesting comment online was filled out to the company’s Alexandria location. However, no response from Five Guys had been received by Tuesday afternoon.

On the heels of the news surrounding the Five Guys closure at the mall, another report began to surface on various social media platforms regarding another mall-based, chain store closing.

It is reported that FYE (For Your Entertainment) store at the Chautauqua Mall, located at 318 E. Fairmount Ave., No. 372, will also be set to shutter operations soon.

However, when an employee was asked about the potential store closure, the employee insisted that FYE corporate office be contacted instead.

It should be noted that in the mall’s FYI store front window, there are signs affixed, which reads 50% off; Everything Must Go; 30% Off and others signage.

According to www.fye.com/pages, the company was founded in 1993 and expanded operations after acquiring, buying out, and rebranding mall-based stores such as Camelot and Sam Goody, Strawberries, Record Town, Musicland, Suncoast Motion Picture Stores, Media Play and others.

A phone call was placed to FYE’s corporate office located in Albany, New York, as well as filling out a contact request card online. However, at the time of publication, no return call or email was received.