Izakaya Den calls last drinks after 15 years in the

Another long-running, iconic Melbourne restaurant has been forced to close for good after 15 years, two weeks after Gingerboy called time at its CBD restaurant.

Japanese restaurant icon Izakaya Den is closing for good after 15 years.

The hidden CBD basement restaurant was responsible for bringing Japan’s “Izakaya culture” to Melbourne when it first opened in 2009.

Owner Simon Denton said he and co-owners Miyuki Nakahara and Takashi Omi “had been holding on for tooth and nail” since the middle of last year, but resolved to place the business into voluntary administration. Izakaya Den’s final service will be held next Saturday.

“We were forced into this, the option to go on wasn’t an option,” he told the Herald Sun.

“Looking forward into winter and with everything that’s happening in the city, we were facing a perfect storm of problems. We realised it was time to let go.”

Aside from a downturn in customers and revenue, Denton said there was an oversaturation of restaurants in the city.

Izakaya Den is closing after 15 years of trade.

“There are too many restaurants, we are one of them. The city goes through these cycles, it’s like pruning a tree. You need to prune to let in new growth,” he said.

Izakaya Den’s closure comes a day after the Crown Melbourne’s Rosetta revealed it would be shuttering and two weeks after fellow CBD restaurant Gingerboy closed sighting a downturn in customers and income.

Denton, a long-running Melbourne restaurateur best known for popular Japanese restaurant Verge, said he’d seen many changes to the city’s restaurant scene but hadn’t faced anything as tough as right now.

“Things are different now. People aren’t working in the city, the energy is different, there’s a different type of person in the city as well. It has changed. The fabric has changed,” he said.

“It will come back, I have full confidence that it will. We need that regeneration.”

Denton hasn’t thought about what he’ll do next, instead he’s injecting his energy into the restaurant’s final eight services.

“15 years us a long time and this is very personal for us. It’s hard to let go,” he said.

“We are actually pretty busy this weekend. We are pretty much full already, but next week, that is when I want people to come. I don’t want them to just come on the final night — I want them to come every night.”