The sign said open but a letter taped to the window told a different story.

After 46 years and three generations of family ownership, Arturo’s abruptly closed its doors Friday.

Rene Longoria, whose grandparents started the city’s first Mexican restaurant, declined to talk about why it was closing.

Instead he gave the Journal Star a copy of the letter in which he thanked the restaurant’s loyal customers and said it was with “immeasurable sadness” that the longtime eatery closed.

“Together, we have built and sustained something very unique,” the letter said. “Mere words cannot express our immense gratitude for (customers’) faithful support over the years.”

News of the closing came as a shock to customers, neighbors and even Arturo’s landlord.

Russ Bayer, who along with his wife owns the building at 803 Q St. that housed the restaurant, said he had not been notified in advance about the closing and knew nothing about it.

“I’m a little shocked,” he said.

Bayer said he had talked Wednesday with Longoria, who didn’t say anything about plans to close.

He said he occasionally had to ask Longoria about overdue rent but never had any concerns about the restaurant being in financial distress.

Connie Mahaney, who owns From Nebraska Gift Shop next door, speculated that El Potrero, another Mexican restaurant that opened two years ago less than a block away, could have siphoned of some of Arturo’s business.

She said that after Arturo’s put in an outdoor seating area last summer, it seemed pretty full at night, but during the day it didn’t seem as busy.

Denise Roesler, who showed up for a late lunch, found out from a newspaper reporter Arturo’s had closed.

“That totally bums me,” said Roesler, who described herself as a longtime customer.

She said she had frequented the restaurant when it was at 11th and Q streets and also at 70th and Van Dorn streets.

“They had the best chips and salsa in town,” Roesler said.

Another longtime customer, Foster Collins, said he had frequented Arturo’s ever since moving to Lincoln in 1978.

He said he and his wife like to take their two young children there.

“I know plenty of kids who had their first meal there,” Collins said. 

  Arturo’s started as the Taco Hut in 1961, moved to 11th and Q in 1969 and changed its name in the 1970s.

It was a favorite hangout for University of Nebraska-Lincoln employees and students as well as people who worked downtown.

But the city exercised eminent domain to condemn the restaurant along with other businesses on the infamous Block 35 in 1989 to make way for a development that never materialized.

Instead, the block bounded by P, Q, 10th and 11th streets sat as a parking lot for almost a decade before the Embassy Suites Hotel was built.

Arturo’s moved to 70th and Van Dorn, where it stayed until moving to its present Haymarket location in the fall of 1998.

Dan Longoria, who declined to comment Friday,  told the Journal Star in 1997 that his father, Art, who died in 1995, rarely ventured downtown after the city forced Arturo’s to move.

Dan Longoria said in that interview that it hurt to “see a parking meter on the spot where my Dad worked so hard.”

In a 2000 interview with the Journal Star just before the Embassy Suites opened, Rene Longoria sounded a more forgiving tone.

“We’re happy where we are,” he said. “We understand that times change.”

Reach Matt Olberding at 473-2647 or molberding@journalstar.com.