Cafe, bakery leave Fifth Street.

Byline: Joe Mosley The Register-Guard

The owners of two popular eateries affected by a remodeling project at Eugene's Fifth Street Public Market have left the market and are concentrating on other locations, they said Friday.

"For us in many ways, it was just the right move," said Metropol Bakery owner Donna McGuinness, one of the original tenants when the market opened almost 30 years ago.

"They're ripping apart the whole downstairs," she said. "They were going to be moving us around to the other end ... so we had to decide whether we wanted to just call it a day, which is basically what we decided."

Metropol was joined by Cafe Yumm! in opting to leave the Fifth Street Public Market rather than pursue other potential locations in the evolving shopping venue.

The owners of both businesses are focusing for now on their other Eugene locations: Metropol at 2538 Willamette St., and Cafe Yumm! at the Oakway Center and the Meridian, at 1801 Willamette.

"Our (other) locations now are thriving and growing, but we're close to the point of maxing out our systems - like seating," said Mark Beauchamp, who owns Cafe Yumm! with his wife, Mary Ann. "But that also means there are opportunities for other locations, certainly."

He said the fledgling restaurant chain - which he described as "eclectic whole foods" - is likely to add outlets over the next few years in west and north Eugene, and in Springfield. The business got its start at the Fifth Street Public Market, but Beauchamp said exposure in its hard-to-find spot downstairs was never as good as at the restaurant's two remaining locations.

"Our survival there was a testament to our product," he said.

McGuinness said her business is also near capacity at its current location, and she may be interested in growing. The most likely options are to expand the current Willamette Street bakery into an adjacent storefront or to seek a larger site elsewhere in south Eugene.

But for now, she plans to try more wholesale baking and move forward on a minor remodel that will increase retail seating by about 10 tables.

"We're really happy just consolidating and catching our breath here for a minute," McGuinness said.

Metropol and Cafe Yumm! were located in the ground-floor Galleria area of the Fifth Street Market's east building - a former chicken processing plant. Casablanca Middle Eastern Restaurant, a longtime neighbor of the two departed food outlets, is expected to move into a new location in the remodeled market.

The maze of artsy but cramped cubbyholes on the building's bottom floor and the southern portion of its second floor are being demolished to make way for fewer, but more spacious, retail spaces.

The project - expected to cost between $2 million and $3 million - is scheduled to be completed by fall.

Fifth Street Public Market owner Brian Obie could not be reached Friday to comment on the departure of Metropol and Cafe Yumm! He has said previously that he regretted losing some tenants as a result of the renovation, but he hoped to upgrade the overall look and feel of the market.