CAPE CORAL, Fla. (WINK) \u2014 Tito’s Cantina is closing its doors after three years in business.<\/p>\n
Former fighter Tito Ortiz said his absence from the restaurant was the main reason for the closure. He hasn’t been at the restaurant as much while recovering from a boating accident that led to neck surgery.<\/p>\n
“It’s hard for me. But at the same time, I’ll have a lot more time for my family, a lot more time to coach high school wrestling,” Ortiz said.<\/p>\n
Customers said they’ll miss the personal touch Ortiz brought to the restaurant. He was known for greeting fans and making time for everyone who walked through the door.<\/p>\n
“Tito was very warm and welcoming to me, even though he had no idea who I was,” Rachel Peters of Fort Myers said.<\/p>\n
Carla Accettolla and Jeff Olson were there from the start, even designing the restaurant’s T-shirts. They returned for the final day as people packed the bar for one more autograph and one more drink.<\/p>\n
“We’ve believed in it from day one. I mean, we were here. We were invested,” Accettolla said.<\/p>\n
“In all honesty, it’s really sad, you know, to see this go,” Accettolla said.<\/p>\n
While the restaurant is closing, Ortiz said he’s staying in the area.<\/p>\n
“Yeah I’m staying here. I’m not going anywhere. This is home for me.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CAPE CORAL, Fla. (WINK) \u2014 Tito’s Cantina is closing its doors after three years in business. Former fighter…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":418900,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[209,211,210,90583,28,897,157982,102285,124007],"class_list":["post-418899","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral-headlines","tag-cape-coral-news","tag-cities-in-the-united-states","tag-florida","tag-fort-myers","tag-geography-of-florida","tag-tito","tag-tito-ortiz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418899","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=418899"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418899\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/418900"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=418899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=418899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=418899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}