A high-end pizza and tapas restaurant that opened in Erie County about a year and a half ago has announced it has closed.<\/p>\n
In a post on Facebook, the owners of A. Francisco\u2019s, which opened in downtown Erie in January 2025, <\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s no easy way to say it. A. Francisco\u2019s is closed,\u201d the post read. \u201cThis is not where we wanted to be, and in some ways, the timing makes it even harder.<\/p>\n
\u201cOver the past several months, we\u2019ve had some great nights, welcomed new faces, watched regulars return, and felt the momentum we worked so hard to build finally beginning to take hold,\u201d the post continued. \u201cBut restaurants are unforgiving businesses, and momentum alone isn\u2019t always enough.\u201d<\/p>\n
The post said that it took \u201cmore time, more energy, and significantly more money\u201d to get the restaurant started and some recent \u201cslower stretches\u201d in foot traffic made the business difficult to sustain.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter looking at everything in front of us, we\u2019ve reached the point where we simply can\u2019t keep operating,\u201d the post said. <\/p>\n
\u201cFrom the beginning, A. Francisco\u2019s was built to discover something new, stay a little longer than you planned, have a great drink and a great meal, and feel like you had found somewhere different,\u201d the owners wrote. \u201cWe\u2019re incredibly proud of what we built here. We\u2019re especially proud of our staff, who believed in this place and gave so much of themselves to make it what it became.\u201d<\/p>\n
They then thanked all their customers including those who \u201cmade A. Francisco\u2019s part of their life in any small way.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe wish we had more time. But we\u2019ll always be grateful for the time we had, and for everyone who understood what we were trying to create,\u201d the post concluded.<\/p>\n
Fans of the restaurant voiced their sorrows about the closure in the comments section of the post. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis place was so amazing and one of the most unique spots in Erie, I always recommended people go there. So sad we can\u2019t seem to keep things that are a little different from the norm and cool here,\u201d one person wrote.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a huge loss to the regional dining scene. Your restaurant was one of, if not the best restaurant in Erie. Thank you for all the effort you made. You will be sorely missed,\u201d another opined. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhat?! Instant tears. My favorite pizza ever. Much love and best wishes for the future, so much talent, can\u2019t wait to see what you do next,\u201d a third wrote.<\/p>\n
The social media post did not clarify if the restaurant had already closed or had a future closure date planned.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A high-end pizza and tapas restaurant that opened in Erie County about a year and a half ago has announced it has closed. In a post on Facebook, the owners of A. Francisco\u2019s, which opened in downtown Erie in January 2025, \u201cThere\u2019s no easy way to say it. A. Francisco\u2019s is closed,\u201d the post read.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13632,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[12299,33,34,12300,12301,399,3249,4765,2389,3893,12302,12303,12304,120,1223,12305,12306,12307,8898],"class_list":["post-13631","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-best-restaurants","tag-12299","tag-best-restaurant","tag-best-restaurants","tag-brand","tag-branding","tag-business","tag-company","tag-dublin","tag-economy","tag-finance","tag-ireland","tag-logo","tag-logos","tag-news","tag-shop","tag-sign","tag-signs","tag-sorry-were-closed","tag-store"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/vive.im\/@dnc\/117132735518671462","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/restaurants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13631","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/restaurants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/restaurants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/restaurants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/restaurants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13631"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/restaurants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13631\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/restaurants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13632"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/restaurants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13631"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/restaurants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13631"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/restaurants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13631"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}