What’s up with Javier’s? The Fresno Mexican restaurant is closed, but maybe not forever
Javier’s Mexican Restaurant, a Fresno favorite for almost 50 years, has been closed since mid-June.
Is it closed for good? What’s going on?
Plenty of people on social media are asking.
The restaurant at Kings Canyon Road and Clovis Avenue closed a couple weeks ago; a Facebook post saying it had trouble in the kitchen and would reopen on June 18. It didn’t. Then a Facebook post circulated Monday implying that it might be closed for good.
Javier Duran, who is part of the family that owns the restaurant and the person his dad named it after, spoke with The Bee Monday.
The restaurant is closed for now, but the family is trying to reopen it, he said.
The biggest problem is that the restaurant just isn’t making enough money, he said.
“There’s no funds,” he said. “The business has slowed down quite a bit.”
Lunch business was strong, but “the evening times were slow. It just slowed down in the night,” Duran said.
Like many other restaurants right now, Javier’s is facing challenges including rising food prices and power bills, a labor shortage and a pullback in consumer spending.
The building, a former bank, doesn’t have good insulation, Duran said.
“What hurts the restaurant is the building being so big,” he said. “PG&E is really high for that building.”
There //have been some changes behind the scenes with the family. But Duran and his brother and sister met Monday and decided to reopen the business, he said.
“We need a loan to help us pay off bills and reopen again,” he said. “That’s our mission right now: to open back up.”
The restaurant is supposed to celebrate its 50th anniversary in August.
Late last year, it added brunch, opening on Sundays for the first time.
Javier’s was founded and run by Javier’s parents, Louis and Lupe Duran. Louis Duran, a mechanic-turned-restaurateur, died in 2022 at age 88.
The restaurant originally opened on down the street, and later relocated to Kings Canyon Road and Clovis Avenue.
This story was originally published July 8, 2024 at 4:50 PM.
