Asheville Pizzeria Closes Briefly as Staff Mourns Fatally Shot Coworker
PIE.ZAA in downtown Asheville shut down briefly after 20-year-old employee William Wyatt Adair was fatally shot on March 9.
PIE.ZAA, a popular downtown Asheville pizzeria, closed its doors for a day after one of its own was killed. William Wyatt Adair, 20, a longtime member of the restaurant's staff, was shot and killed on Monday, March 9. Asheville Police Department officers found Adair after responding to a report of a gunshot wound victim on Patton Avenue near New Leicester Highway.
The pizzeria announced the death on social media the same day it happened. By the following morning, coworkers were still searching for words.
"Our whole work team is feeling it pretty hard right now. We closed yesterday to give everyone some time to kind of process it, which was much needed. I imagine everyone's just still kind of processing it and missing him," said Caleb Knight, a coworker of Adair's.
Knight described Adair as a funny, hardworking and caring individual who made everyone around him happy. That portrait was echoed by Ridge Hendrix, another coworker who reached out to describe what Adair meant to him personally.
"He felt like a brother to me, one I could cry to, one I could tell anything to. He always listened and rarely ever made a conversation revolve around him. Always allowing others to have their moment," Hendrix said.
Tyler Kotch, the CEO and founder of PIE.ZAA, said Adair brightened up the room.
The decision to close, even briefly, reflects a reality that restaurants rarely talk about openly: kitchens and dining rooms are tight-knit workplaces where staff spend long hours together, and the sudden loss of a colleague lands differently than it might in a more transactional work environment. For a small downtown pizzeria, closing means lost revenue. PIE.ZAA did it anyway.
No details about a suspect or the circumstances leading to the shooting on Patton Avenue have been confirmed in connection with the PIE.ZAA case. The Asheville Police Department has not released additional information publicly tying an arrest or motive to Adair's death.
Adair was 20 years old.
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