The Black Sheep Pub & Restaurant bustled with lively Celtic music, contradancing, hugs and high spirits Sunday afternoon, culminating with attendees singing “The Parting Glass” and raising their glasses toward the local group of musicians as they played their final song for the day.

The pub hosts a Celtic jam every Sunday from 2 to 5 p.m. and the last one will be held on Sunday, Aug. 18, before the pub and restaurant closes for good that same day. With news of the pending closure well circulated, fans of the bar and restaurant and their families and friends packed into the space Sunday to get one of the last chances to experience the lively Irish jam before it shutters. Owner Clarinda Merripen bused tables, hugged performers and helped seat customers.

Charisse Sydoriak and her party arrived early at 1:30 to get a front row seat. Sydoriak moved to Ashland in 2017, before Merripen bought the pub and restaurant.

“This is an institution and we’re going to miss it,” Sydoriak said. “It’s one of the reasons many of us moved here.”

Jim Finnegan, a school teacher in the Rogue Valley and a member of the Celtic group, has been playing at the jam session since 2004. Finnegan said when he first started coming to the weekly group, he didn’t know many of the tunes, but learned while playing at the jam sessions.

For Finnegan, playing with the group is as sacred as attending a church service each week.

“It’s probably my favorite moment of the week,” Finnegan said. “It’s about the music and about the people.

“Clarinda, the owner, she’s been so wonderful,” he added. “I see this as kind of a tragic end. I mean, we’ll all (continue to) make music, but she put her heart and soul into this place.”

In contrast to lively sounds of the Sunday Celtic jam, the Black Sheep Pub & Restaurant was forebodingly quiet on Thursday last week as employees prepared to open for the evening.

News of the pending closure had just come out online, and comments were flooding social media as Merripen wiped tears from her eyes as she sat at a corner table talking about the place where she’s fostered belonging and inclusivity since 2017. The Black Sheep, known as simply “The Sheep” to some, will close its bright, red doors across from Ashland Plaza on Aug. 18. The business is up for sale for $120,000. It has served customers in downtown Ashland since 1991, when it was owned and operated by Susan Chester.

The pub and restaurant is known for traditional British fare like bangers and mash, shepherd’s pie, spotted dick, and fish ‘n chips, to name a few, along with a full list of spirits and mocktails, with a side of historical and quirky memorabilia that was all part of what made many, young and old, feel a sense of belonging at the eatery.

That has been Merripen’s aim, anyway.

“I really wanted to create a space for community,” she said.

A number of factors have led to the closure, according to Merripen, including impacts from lower than normal sales, which she said isn’t unique to The Black Sheep.

Merripen said she decided in August 2023 she would need to shutter the business following a dip in sales last July, which she sees as part of a larger trend for both local restaurants and on a national scale.

“The end of July … through mid-September (2023), we had a huge negative spike, and it wasn’t just us, it was Ashland,” Merripen said. “Partially because of smoke and other kinds of things.

“Then we began seeing this weird trend,” she added. “Our regular busy times were fine, our off days were way off,” she added.

Merripen also sees the decline in population in Ashland since 2020 — 459 people according to city data — has significantly contributed to negative impacts on businesses like hers.

“The population of Ashland has gone down,” Merripen said.

From her perspective, she’s seeing less business from Oregon Shakespeare Festival-goers who in the past might have stayed longer than one or two nights.

“When they go out on those nights, they want to go for what they perceive as really nice food,” Merripen said.

“I think there are places where people party more and we are not that,” she added.

But the eatery does offer something else.

Merripen, who bought the eatery in 2017, pointed out a sign that said “Where You Belong” on the wall filled with memorabilia.

“That’s why I bought The Black Sheep,” she said. “I wanted to create a place where people belonged.”

And that’s exactly what she did.

Merripen kept The Black Sheep’s friendly British pub vibes, including the full-size British telephone booth in one corner and dart boards in another corner near the entrance.

“We tried to keep a lot of the same things,” she said.

She held Sunday afternoon Celtic jam sessions, which drew young and old to the pub.

The last one is planned for Sunday, Aug. 18, along with The Lantern storytelling series finale that evening.

“That is one of our longest running … and most popular events, and I wanted to have those two events on my last day,” Merripen said, becoming emotional. “They are some of my favorites and they really represent The Sheep more than anything else.”

Walking around the pub last week, Merripen showed Ashland.news the pieces she added to the iconic memorabilia on the walls, including The Beatles, Dr. Who, and Harry Potter memorabilia.

She noted that, while under her ownership, The Black Sheep boosted community events in town, developing a unique trivia night, hosting game nights, as well as The Lantern storytelling series, while also adding LGBTQ-friendly events such as drag shows and aerial arts as a way to foster inclusivity among staff and patrons.

She emphasized that The Black Sheep wasn’t the first to start pub trivia, but said they did offer a unique version.

“We brought the drag shows back, they weren’t around anywhere else,” Merripen said, adding that The Black Sheep also has hosted drag-themed bingo.

“All of us bars and venues are trying to find something else,” Merripen said. “I did the game nights and video games nights, and now three other places on Monday are doing that, because there’s just not enough people.”

Merripen noted that since 2017, The Black Sheep has provided a regular venue for bands and performers. Currently, in addition to 18 employees, she has 50 to 60 performers.

Other factors impacting the closure, according to Merripen, include the local food and beverage tax and city planning regulations, in addition to national restaurant trends and the high cost of credit card fees.

Merripen has spoken up publicly at Ashland City Council meetings in the past about decreases in sales and has referred to the food and beverage tax as a disincentive to local patrons.

“I’ve been trying to ring this bell for a while,” she said.

Many factors have made working for her business more difficult for her employees in recent years, such as finding adequate mid-range housing and transportation.

“I have people who have to walk a mile home (from work) at 11 or 12 o’clock at night,” Merripen said. “I’ve had at least one person quit because they were sexually assaulted (on the way home), a man … Transportation would have solved all of that.”

Merripen said she’s received multiple death threats, too, some from houseless individuals, because she has an LGBTQ flag draped over the window.

“That’s just part of the reason I’m just so tired,” she said.

City planning regulations have also been a stressor for her, especially on A-frame signage outside the pub.

“I think (the City) Council needs to look at what they can do to reduce barriers for businesses because I think that there’s a distance between what they perceive and what’s actually happening,” Merripen said. “There’s not an understanding between these regulations and what it means for business.”

Merripen said she and her husband are open to buyers and can help finance a buyer.

“We’re going to keep the place at least through September, maybe through October,” she said.

Merripen said she will either sell the space with or without the memorabilia.

As front-of-house manager Jovi Morris prepared to open the bar on Thursday, she expressed sadness about the upcoming closure.

“I’m gonna cry so hard,” Morris said of the last day. “I’m gonna drink a lot of Red Bull and just push my way through it.”

Morris, 30, has worked at The Black Sheep for two and a half years, but remembers hanging out at the eatery while she waited for her brother to get off shift there in 2010.

“I’m pretty committed to The Sheep, so I’m gonna be here until the end,” Morris said.

Morris said she and her boyfriend are moving out of state following the closure: “The cost of living’s getting too high and the smoke every single year, and it’s like, we’re just moving to some place different.”