Sylmar Mexican Restaurant Los Ruizeñores Closes After a Rent Hike

Jardín, the café next door, shut too; both shared one lease, and the owners plan to keep catering.

Los Ruizeñores, a family Mexican restaurant in Sylmar, and Jardín, the café next door, have closed after a rent hike, their owners said.

The owners, Ernie and Maricela, said in an Instagram video posted Thursday that Wednesday had been the last day of service at both spots, which sit at 15206 Roxford St. Ernie's father opened Los Ruizeñores and later handed it down to his son, so the shutdown ends a business that's run across two generations of one family.

The trouble started with the lease, KTLA reported. The restaurant and the café are bound to the same one, so when the landlord raised the rent earlier this year, the increase hit both at once. Ernie said the hike "really kind of took the bang out of us," in the video KTLA reported on, and called it one piece of a combination of things that piled up.

It wasn't only the rent. Maricela said the cost of everything had gotten out of hand, KTLA reported, and the couple said the climbing bills left them no way to keep the doors open, however hard they'd fought to stay.

There's no other business for them to fall back on. "We've never done anything but own Los Ruizeñores and Jardín, and believe me, it's not easy," Maricela said, according to KTLA.

Their written post thanked everyone who'd walked in, whether they came once or turned into regulars, and said those visits and recommendations meant more to the family than customers knew.

The kitchen work isn't over entirely. The couple plans to keep doing on-site catering, and Ernie asked anyone planning a party to call. "If you guys have a party … please just reach out to us," he said, KTLA reported. "The numbers are the same."