POTSDAM – Julian’s Restaurant at 38 Market Street has closed.

“It’s pretty straightforward,” said Jody Wenzel, who, along with his wife Heather, owns the restaurant and McDuff’s Tavern, 59 Market St., in downtown Potsdam.

It’s a matter of time, he said.

“My wife took a full-time job she couldn’t pass up. I have a full-time job. And we have a six-year-old. There was no physical way to keep everything going the way we wanted to.”

The way they want it to go includes more time with their son, for whom Julian’s was named.

“We were having to spend an overwhelming amount of time between the two businesses and I was barely able to see my son or my wife or anything else,” Wenzel said.

He said it was a choice between closing Julian’s or McDuff’s, and the decision had to be made before the summer, when many businesses say things slow down in Potsdam.

McDuff’s, he said, has a better profit margin, so Julian’s has closed two and a half years after it opened in late September 2009.

“It was a matter of what was the best path,” he said.