Longtime Italian restaurant Pranzo set to close
Italian restaurant may relocate near downtown in six to nine months, owner Lemon says
The end is near for Pranzo Italian Grill after three decades at the former Sanbusco Market Center. The restaurant at 540 Montezuma Ave. will close at the end of business Saturday, owner Steven Lemon said. He plans to reopen in a new location in six to nine months. Lemon said he hasn’t decided on a new site but expects it will be close to downtown Santa Fe or at the current location.
“I’m trying to recreate what I have near where I am in the downtown area,” he said. “Pranzo needs to be downtown somewhere, it’s a very big restaurant.”
The closing brings to an end a 16-monthold legal dispute between Lemon, the corporation he created to manage Pranzo (Food Art LLC), and Sanbusco 2015 LLC, the owner of the former market center — much of which was torn down to make way for the New Mexico School for the Arts, now under construction.
Lemon prepared a statement on the lawsuit, which was settled out of court in June, but declined further comment.
“The New Mexico School for the Arts and Pranzo Italian Grill resolved their dispute in an amicable manner,” he said.
Attorneys for Sanbusco 2015 and representatives of the New Mexico School for the Arts did not return messages seeking comment.
Lemon said he expects a large turnout during the restaurant’s final week on Montezuma Avenue. Pranzo’s normal business hours end at 9 p.m. Saturday. He added patrons who want to dine one last time at Montezuma Ave-
nue should make a reservation.
“I don’t know how long we’ll go,” he said. “There might be a little party at the end.”
The staff of 37 was notified Friday that the restaurant would close, Lemon said.
“They’ll come work for me again,” he said.
Manager Greg Lujan started what he thought would be a temporary job there in 2009 when the housing market collapsed. He was a mortgage broker at the time. Nine years later, he contemplated his next move: staying with the restaurant, returning to mortgage lending or competitive bass fishing.
“It’s been a great place to work,” Lujan said Monday.
The owner the past two years, Lemon was executive chef at Pranzo when it opened in 1988 until 1995 and again from April 2013 until he purchased the restaurant from Michael O’Reilly in January 2014, according to a New Mexican story.
Pranzo founding partners Rick Post, Tom White and Greg Atkins sold the restaurant in April 2005 to focus on their other business, Il Vicino, an Albuquerque-based pizza chain.
In May 2017, Food Art sued Sanbusco 2015, claiming parts of its plan to turn the former commercial space into the New Mexico School for the Arts impinged upon the restaurant lease. Food Art claimed that demolition work, closing the center’s parking lot and and its storage areas would irreparably harm the business.
A year later, with the Sanbusco center partially demolished and school construction underway, Food Art sought a restraining order to halt further construction until the lawsuit was resolved.
However, the case was settled short of trial, according to New Mexico First Judicial District Court records. A hearing on the restraining order request was canceled.