Two Italian restaurants in the Washington, D.C., area are preparing to close as their hospitality group works through Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The planned shutdowns follow the summer closure of New York’s Redeye Grill, another restaurant connected to the same group.
Café Fiorello at 1001 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington is scheduled to serve its final customers Wednesday, October 28. Across the Potomac, Fiorella Italian Kitchen & Pizzeria at National Harbor in Maryland is expected to close Thursday, October 29. Eater DC reported both dates October 21, and the Washington Business Journal also reported the coming closures.
One restaurant opened 17 months ago; the other dates to 2011
Washington’s Café Fiorello opened in May 2025, bringing a version of the celebrated New York restaurant near Lincoln Center to Pennsylvania Avenue. Its menu emphasized Italian classics, thin-crust pizza and an antipasto bar in a space near the National Mall.
Fiorella Italian Kitchen, at 152 National Plaza in Oxon Hill, has been part of the National Harbor waterfront since 2011. It serves pizza, pasta and other Italian dishes. The Maryland location is not the same restaurant as the Café Fiorello locations in Washington and New York, although all have ties to the Fireman restaurant group.
How the restaurant bankruptcy connects to the closures
The bankruptcy case belongs to S.M.F. Group Inc. and 21 affiliated companies, associated with the Fireman Hospitality Group. They filed for Chapter 11 protection August 9, 2026, in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York. The official bankruptcy case docket includes an entity named Cafe Concepts (Washington DC), LLC among the debtors.
The group entered bankruptcy facing a severe cash shortage and disputes involving merchant cash advance financing and withheld card payments, according to its restructuring officer’s court account. Chapter 11 allows the debtor companies to pursue a restructuring or asset sale while under bankruptcy court supervision.
On October 6, a Landry’s affiliate emerged as the winning bidder in an auction for the group’s restaurants, offering $22.2 million. New reporting October 20 described a partnership with Ciao Hospitality Group to run different New York properties. The auction result does not, by itself, establish that the purchase has closed.
What diners should know
The planned Washington and Maryland closings are a different outcome from the hoped-for continuation of restaurants such as New York’s Café Fiorello, Trattoria Dell’Arte and Bond 45 under new operators. The final services are scheduled for next week, even as the New York locations remain part of the court-supervised sale process.
Eater DC reported that Café Fiorello’s reservation page was informing prospective guests it could no longer welcome them. Both restaurants’ websites still displayed menus and operating hours during the closing week, so anyone hoping to visit before the announced last service should check directly with the restaurant.
No confirmed number of employees affected at the two locations has been released. For local diners, the closures would end a short-lived downtown Washington expansion and a much longer run for an Italian restaurant on the National Harbor waterfront.
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