Yes, this restaurant is still coming. The latest on this popular Fresno Mexican spot
One of Fresno’s most popular Mexican restaurants, Toledo’s, announced plans to open a big new location in 2018.
But it’s been five years.
So why isn’t it open yet? And why did Toledo’s close the little location it had at Cedar and Nees avenues?
The new big new one is still happening, said Jesse Toledo, part of the family that owns the company, Toledo’s Mexican Restaurant.
The new restaurant is also at Cedar and Nees, in a large building close to Cedar.
Renovations were delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic, but are back on track.
“We’re hoping a couple more weeks to finish construction and we can start moving in all the equipment and have a brand new, perfect restaurant,” Toledo said.
The location is a replacement for the beloved Toledo’s location with a large patio with trees growing through it on Blackstone Avenue near Alluvial Avenue. It was torn down in 2019 because the building was in rough shape.
The new one doesn’t have a patio, but they’ve brought the vibe of the patio inside, the family has said.
The restaurant has about 10 weeks left on construction, and then will start hiring and training, Toledo said.
It will open sometime after that — but before the end of the year, he said.
“For sure, for sure it’s going to be this year,” he said. “I cannot start the year not open.”
What closed?
The Toledo’s on Shaw Avenue in Clovis across from Sierra Vista Mall remains open. As does the one at Herndon and Milburn avenues in Fresno. The location at Shaw Avenue and Fresno Street closed a while back.
Toledito’s, the small breakfast and lunch restaurant downtown, is owned separately by a different member of the family.
Which brings us to the little Toledo’s Mexican Restaurant that opened in 2021 in the same shopping center where the work is happening on the new location.
It opened in a former Chinese restaurant next to Raw Earth Juicery in 2021 during those chaotic COVID-19 years.
That one closed in June. At least five other Fresno restaurants closed in recent months, citing rising rents, pay and energy bills.
But the Toledo’s closed for different reasons. It was never meant to be permanent, Toledo said.
It was a stopgap until the larger location in the same shopping center was finished.
The employees of temporary Toledo’s have been sent to the other larger locations to be trained in the larger volume the new location will do when it opens.
This story was originally published September 13, 2023 at 11:05 AM.
