Restaurant notes: Chef Charin and Johnny Apples close

The Bala BYO and the Holland bar are dark.

by Michael Klein

Published Feb. 2, 2011, 2:37 p.m. ET

January is the cruelest month for restaurants, they say, and two more have bitten the dust.

Chef Charin, which Charin and Pongsavat "Pong" Pitakanon opened in 1995 at 126 Bala Ave. in Bala Cynwyd, buttoned up over the weekend. The couple have retired to Thailand, according to their landlord.
Johnny Apples on Buck Road in Holland, Bucks County -- a pub of no relation to the New York Timesman -- is closed. The building, sans liquor license, is being offered at $850,000.