![\"Thousands](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/20250421_185904.jpg\")
Thousands of Ghost fans queue to enter the Utilita Arena on April 20, 2025(Image: Kirsty Bosley)<\/p>\nEd’s Easy Diner has closed at what locals know as “the NIA”Thousands of Ghost fans queue to enter the Utilita Arena on April 20, 2025(Image: Kirsty Bosley)<\/p>\n
A restaurant chain has closed its Birmingham Utilita Arena branch after ten years.<\/p>\n
Ed’s Easy Diner has occupied one of the prominent units outside what locals often refer to as “the NIA” since 2015.<\/p>\n
The American-style burger joint closed this past week, listing it as ‘permanently closed’ on Google and removing the store from their branch locator on the Ed’s website.<\/p>\n
Read more: Fans of ‘British-best’ bakery in Birmingham say ‘we missed you’ as it reopens<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n Subscribe to the Brum Food Club<\/a> for a weekly food and drink newsletter, in your inbox, every Thursday. It’s free.<\/strong><\/p>\n The restaurant is situated on what the arena calls its ‘boardwalk’, alongside Mooncat, Costa and Legoland Discovery Centre.<\/p>\n Sommar Brewery had a taproom at the canalside location until February this year when it shut down<\/a> too.<\/p>\n Customers were leaving reviews for the restaurant right up until a week ago when two customers gave it glowing five-star reviews.<\/p>\n Overall, it had a 4.1 star rating out of five, due in part to the convenience of its location for pre-show meals.<\/p>\n Signage has already appeared in the windows announcing what the site will become.<\/p>\n In what will be no surprise to Brummies who have been keeping abreast of new openings in the city centre over the last 12 months, a chicken shop has set its sights on the venue.<\/p>\n Slim Chickens will open a new location in the old Ed’s Easy Diner spot, its second branch in the city centre after the Grand Central location.<\/p>\n The city now has what is jokingly referred to locally as a ‘Chicken Quarter<\/a>‘, with Nando’s, Popeyes, Wing Stop and KFC<\/a> occupying a short stretch of New Street.<\/p>\n It was revealed last month that another chicken shop, Dave’s Hot Chicken, would be opening its first branch<\/a> of New Street too.<\/p>\n As well as a Grand Central spot, Slim Chickens also operates out of the food court at Sainsbury’s<\/a> in Selly Oak<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ed’s Easy Diner has closed at what locals know as “the NIA”Thousands of Ghost fans queue to enter…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":75552,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7820],"tags":[855,983,10314,748,393,4884,16,15,64919],"class_list":{"0":"post-170417","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-birmingham","8":"tag-birmingham","9":"tag-birmingham-city-centre","10":"tag-birmingham-restaurants","11":"tag-britain","12":"tag-england","13":"tag-great-britain","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom","16":"tag-utilita-arena-birmingham"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114653807512189697","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170417","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=170417"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170417\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/75552"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=170417"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=170417"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=170417"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}