After 20 years of staying open 24 hours a day, seven days a week in Bend, Denny’s restaurant on Northeast Third Street is closing. The restaurant’s last day will be March 5, when it will close at 2 p.m., owner Dean Moe said Friday.

“Unfortunately, it just doesn’t make financial sense to keep it open,” said Moe, who lives in Springfield. “Costs keep going up and that building is so limited in size … there’s competition nowadays that can seat double what we can seat.”

Moe says Denny’s Corp., of Spartanburg, S.C., owns the restaurant’s land and building and leases the estimated 3,500-square-foot facility to him. The lease will come up in August, Moe said, at which time he would have closed the restaurant anyway. He doesn’t expect another Denny’s franchise will open in the space once he vacates.

The restaurant used to be along Bend’s main drag, before the Bend Parkway opened, a factor Moe attributes to declining patronage.

“In my opinion, it took (Bend residents) three years to learn how to use that parkway,” he said. “And by then, you could see it impacting sales.”

Moe and his ownership group own five other Denny’s franchises in Wilsonville, Springfield, Arlington, Wash., Redding, Calif., and Woodland, Calif. With his Springfield restaurant so far from Bend, Moe says he regrettably won’t be able to transfer any of his 15 Bend employees to other locations.

Moe bought the Bend franchise in 1991. The previous owners had owned the business since 1988, he said. Many of Denny’s existing customers have been loyal all that time, he said.

“You get to know them, they’re just like family,” he said. “It feels terrible (to close), it really does.”