investigators found employees had been denied tips<\/a>. The restaurant later said it terminated the outside firm responsible for handling that portion of its business.<\/p>\n“All that I heard was that they were skimming some of the tips,” Rhoda said. “We kind of boycotted after that.”<\/p>\n
Employees packed equipment into a Red Mesa van Tuesday night as customers peered through the restaurant\u2019s windows.<\/p>\n
Longtime St. Pete resident Connie Whitehead was headed into the restaurant for a midweek margarita when she found out it had closed.<\/p>\n
Community reacts to loss of local favorite<\/p>\n
What they’re saying<\/p>\n
“I was disappointed to hear,” Whitehead said. “They\u2019ve been so involved in our downtown charities for years.”<\/p>\n
In a farewell Facebook post, Red Mesa thanked customers for 16 years of support.<\/p>\n
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“The lovely courtyard and the night lights, and the fun with friends and stuff like that,” Whitehead said.<\/p>\n
In a statement sent to FOX 13, Red Mesa Cantina and Red Mesa Events blamed a tough economy, hurricane impacts and the year-long closure of Tropicana Field for the shutdown.<\/p>\n
“Restaurants and events are luxuries that, for many in the community, have become difficult to prioritize,” the company said.<\/p>\n
“Their costs are rising, just like everybody else\u2019s, so they have to charge for it. People are really watching their spending,” Rhoda said.<\/p>\n
What’s next<\/p>\n
The company said the closure applies only to Red Mesa Cantina and Red Mesa Events. Red Mesa Restaurant, Red Mesa Mercado and Red Mesa Mercado West remain open.<\/p>\n
Company officials say they\u2019re working with customers who had weddings, parties and other events scheduled at the restaurant.<\/p>\n
The Source<\/p>\n
Information for this story came from statements from Red Mesa Cantina, interviews with customers and St. Petersburg residents, along with previous reporting on FOX 13 News.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Brief Red Mesa Cantina has permanently closed its doors after serving downtown St. Petersburg for 16 years.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":294258,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[91840,202,204,203,199,201,200],"class_list":["post-294257","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-red-mesa","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294257","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=294257"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294257\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/294258"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=294257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=294257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=294257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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