The Matador, a Mexican restaurant in downtown Phoenix, closed its doors for the last time Saturday night, ending its 36-year run after negotiations with the city of Phoenix to extend the lease failed.
The family-owned restaurant has been overdue on its rent payments too many times and owed about $400,000 to the city, state and federal governments, said Vicki Anagnopoulos, daughter of co-owner Mike Anagnopoulos.
The Matador defaulted on the current month’s rent and an April 2011 agreement to repay the city $85,336 of past and current payments.
The city sent a letter on March 16 saying the Matador did not pay $5,000 for the April 2011 debt-payment agreement, which was due March 1.
The city sent another letter March 19 reminding the owners of the first default and also cited that the month’s rent was not paid on the due date of March 15.
Both letters said if all debt was not repaid by March 21, the city would terminate the lease and repossess the building.
The Matador did not make the payment and the city issued an eviction notice Friday citing failure to meet repayment terms and the owners returned the keys Sunday afternoon, according to a city of Phoenix statement.
The city tried to work with the restaurant to keep it in business by restructuring payments and offering supplemental repayment agreements, according to the city’s statement.
The Matador had 45 employees who lost their jobs. The employees were like family, Vicki Anagnopoulos said, and many had worked at the restaurant since its start.
“We fell on hard times like other businesses downtown,” she said.
A kitchen fire on March 12 was the final straw for the Matador. The restaurant was closed for eight days after the accident, said John Anagnopoulos, Mike Anagnopoulos’ son. He added that the electricity was turned off for a few days and that some of the restaurant’s refrigerated food had to be thrown out.
Before reopening, the Matador used its rent money to pay for more food, which is why it failed to make its final rent payment.
However, the kitchen fire and subsequent failure to pay rent were only the finale in a string of difficulties dating back five years.
John Anagnopoulos said one of the restaurant’s biggest mistakes came in 2007, when it was negotiating its latest lease. The city wanted the restaurant to renovate the building at a cost of $350,000, which the Anagnopoulos family accepted, despite trying to push the cost down to $175,000.
It was a costly renovation, but John Anagnopoulos said it seemed reasonable at the time.
“Back then, we couldn’t help but make money,” he said.
Then the economy crashed, and the restaurant struggled to keep up with renovations. When Senate Bill 1070, Arizona’s controversial immigration law, was passed in 2010, a national boycott of Arizona events and businesses hit the Matador hard because it relies on traffic from the nearby Phoenix Convention Center, John Anagnopoulos said.
“We did the changes but should have used the money elsewhere,” Vicki Anagnopoulos said.
The restaurant completed the renovations but struggled to pay rent. John Anagnopoulos said accepting the renovation requirement was “a horrible decision” in retrospect, but otherwise the restaurant would not have kept the lease.
The Matador’s troubles worsened in January when the city suspended the restaurant’s liquor license, which was never reinstated. The loss damaged the dinner crowd and the Friday nightclub. The Matador offered to give all of the alcohol sales to the city, but the idea was declined, Vicki Anagnopoulos said.
“Even if one person wanted a drink, the whole party would leave,” she said.
John Anagnopoulos said he understood the city’s decision not to renew the lease, but that he expected the city to be more lenient because of the restaurant’s history.
“It’s their right to do that. I thought common sense and compassion might factor in more, but it didn’t,” he said. “We probably paid the city $4 million to $5 million in rent, and we weren’t even given an opportunity this time.”
Vicki Anagnopoulos hopes the Matador can relocate if it can find the right opportunity.
Over more than three decades, the Matador became a mainstay in the downtown dining scene. John Anagnopoulos said downtown Phoenix was “really barren” when the restaurant opened.
“Downtown was empty for years, and so much grew around us,” he said. “Now, I wouldn’t say it’s thriving, but it’s closer.”
Bob Costillo, 42, of Mesa, said his family has visited the Matador about once a week for 15 years, and that it was his only reason for visiting downtown regularly.
“We won’t be coming downtown much,” he said. “We just came here.”
Contact the reporter at mlongdon@asu.edu
Jack Fitzpatrick contributed to this article.
