Popular Mexican restaurant on LA’s Sunset Strip abruptly shuts

A popular Mexican restaurant on LA’s iconic Sunset Strip has closed after more than a decade.

Pink Taco abruptly closed its doors for the last time on Monday. The first thing most customers noticed was the sign on the door that simply read, “Sorry, we’re closed.”

“Effective September 16, 2024, Pink Taco – Los Angeles will be closed for business. Thank you to all who visited West Hollywood. We will miss you tremendously,” the sign read.

It is not yet clear why the Hollywood hotel, which is located opposite the famous celebrity hotel Chateau Marmont, closed its doors after 12 years.

The restaurant first opened on Sunset Boulevard in 2012, after Harry Morton founded it in Las Vegas in 1999.

The three remaining Pink Taco locations in New York, Boston and Washington DC will remain open.

Pink Taco CEO David Miller told Eater Los Angeles that the restaurant was forced to close after it couldn’t find “favorable terms” with its landlord to renew its lease.

Miller told the publication there are no immediate plans to reopen in a different location, but the restaurant remains “optimistic about returning to the market in the future if the opportunity arises.”

At the height of his career, the restaurant became a celebrity hotspot, hosting guests including Nicole Scherzinger and Shenae Grimes.

Many restaurants have struggled in the years following the pandemic due to inflation and rising rent and labor costs.

This comes after another famous Mexican restaurant also closed its doors this month.

Mezcaleria Oaxaca, in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood, has announced that it will close its doors on October 1 after 21 years.

The Famous Mexican Restaurant Anthony Bourdain Lovedwhich first opened in 2003, was the first bar in the country to focus on mezcal.

It’s not just Mexican restaurants that are struggling after the pandemic, as they struggling with higher food and labor costs. There have been a lot of closures and bankruptcies.

The company with the largest bankruptcy filing was Red Lobster, after its $20 endless shrimp deal cost it millions of dollars.

Popular Italian restaurant Buca di Beppo filed for bankruptcy in August, just days after it abruptly closed 13 underperforming locations.

World of Beer Bar & Kitchen was named one of the fastest growing restaurant chains in the US in 2013.

Mezcaleria Oaxac was the first bar in the country to focus on mezcal

The restaurant closed abruptly at the beginning of the week

In August, the company also filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, saying it still owed suppliers about $50 million.

National coffee and luxury supermarket chain Foxtrot announced in early April that it would be closing all of its stores with immediate effect, leaving staff and customers stunned.

Businesses are struggling with declining sales as Americans eat out less after two years of steep price increases.

Earlier this summer, two adjacent Italian restaurants closed their doors after a combined 120 years in the Bay Area.

Family-owned Pezzella’s Villa Napoli in Sunnyvale and restaurant Fiorillo’s in Santa Clara both closed on June 22.

Pezzella’s Villa Napoli has been owned by three generations of the same family for 67 years and is known for its Italian-American cuisine.