In the Know: Cafe Luna closes in North Naples

The second restaurant in as many weeks has closed at Naples Walk shopping center on the southeast corner of Airport-Pulling and Vanderbilt Beach roads in North Naples.

Cafe Luna’s final night was Saturday after a run of more than two years.

“We are all heartbroken” reads the headline atop typed letters posted Monday on either side of the restaurant’s ornate wooden double doors.

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“For the past six months we have been trying to work with our landlord asking for some sort of rent relief. We presented them numerous projections showing that our sales could not support the rent we were paying,” reads the letters signed Ed (Barsamian) and Shannon (Radosti), the owners of Cafe Luna. “They decided rather than work with us they decided to evict us! We have worked extremely hard to build the business and invested great sums of capital to keep it going. We are speechless as to why a landlord would rather have an empty space than work with a tenant.”

The operator of the shopping center is Regency Centers Corp., a real estate investment trust based in Jacksonville. The public company is one of the largest operators of grocery-anchored retail centers. A leasing agent for Regency Centers could not be reached for comment.

“We got further and further behind on the rent,” Barsamian said, noting that the rent for the 4,800-square-foot space was $15,000 a month. “Rent should be about $100,000 a year, not $180,000, what we were on the hook for.”

After grossing $2.5 million annually downtown, Barsamian thought Cafe Luna would do better than it did in North Naples, but the lunch-dinner restaurant turned out to be more like a $1 million location.

“After we were there for a while we realized this is not a $2 million restaurant,” he said.

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The restaurant shuttered this week was the fourth for Cafe Luna, which opened in Naples Walk at the end of June 2016. The 4,800-square-foot venue with a sizable separate lounge had previously been home to Capers Kitchen and Sam Snead’s Tavern. That space in the center of the inline strip has hosted a restaurant since that first phase of the center opened in 1999.

The Cafe Luna concept, an Italian restaurant with a full bar, launched in January 2007 on Fifth Avenue South in Naples. The popular local restaurant was known for its pizza, Italian pasta favorites and its “veally good deal” special on two dinners and a bottle of wine.

This is the first time in 12 seasons that Cafe Luna has not had a restaurant open in the Naples area. The local business often had more than one location operating for the last few years.

After more than nine years, the original downtown restaurant was forced to close at the end of April 2016 with a stretch of other businesses when a Fifth Avenue block was razed for a mixed-use redevelopment project. Before the first one closed, Cafe Luna launched its successor in Liberty Plaza on U.S. 41 in Naples. That location closed after only 14 months, though, because Barsamian said it was too near the Naples Walk location which opened shortly after it.

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While its first location was still operating downtown, Cafe Luna also had a second location for a short time where 21 Spices restaurant is today in Sugden Park Plaza in East Naples. That location closed in March 2015.

This summer, Cafe Luna’s chef, Todd Erling, was arrested by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission officers after he was accused of buying snook out of season from an unlicensed dealer. Following the July arrest, Erling’s employment was terminated after only a few months because the restaurant was downsizing, Radosti said. 

Metro Diner surprisingly shuttered its Naples Walk location Aug. 13 after operating only 18 months at the western end of the center in what once was a Blockbusters Video store. It was the Jacksonville chain’s first restaurant in Southwest Florida, which now also has locations in Bonita Springs and Cape Coral.

Cafe Luna and Metro Diner operated on either side of a strip anchored by a busy Publix supermarket. A Regency Centers representative said earlier this month that Metro Diner's former 3,656-square-foot endcap would be marketed for another restaurant. Because Cafe Luna's unit has been a dining spot for nearly 20 years, it most likely will be marketed for another restaurant, too.

Longtime restaurants still operating in Naples Walk include Il Primo Pizza & Wings, Old Europe Bistro, Super Wok, Subway and Row Seafood by Capt. Brien & Crew.

Cafe Luna’s owners are looking for a new local place to put down roots.

“We’ve been going 12 years and we have a pretty strong brand. I hate to give it up after 12 years. We are not ready to pack it in,” Barsamian said. “We’re not done. Shannon’s great. I’m hoping we can come together and do something else.”

They hope to find a smaller space, preferably near downtown, where they can open a pizzeria or a Cafe Luna Express perhaps.

“As long as rent and location are in harmony with each other,” he said.

Photos:Restaurants closing 2017

For the latest in local restaurants coming and going, see Tim Aten’s “In the Know” columns archived at naplesnews.com/intheknow, and on Facebook at facebook.com/timaten.intheknow.

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