SCHENECTADY — Mexican Radio, a restaurant brand that began in a small Manhattan storefront in 1996 and grew to include a location in Hudson, has closed the last of its three properties, a sprawling complex on State Street that opened nine years ago this month.
A short announcement was posted on the Mexican Radio Facebook page Saturday morning announcing the permanent closure. However, comments on a post from May 7 notifying of what was said to be a one-week vacation seem to indicate the restaurant never reopened during the past month.
Lori Selden, who founded and ran Mexican Radio with her husband, Mark Young, did not immediately reply to a request for comment Saturday morning.
Comprised of three connected brick buildings at the corner of State Street and Broadway, Mexican Radio covers a total of almost 28,000 square feet of interior space over three floors (two accessible to the public), plus a 3,000-square foot patio area. Elaborately renovated, with an interior design and bold color scheme by Selden, the property was listed for sale in November 2020 for $2.95 million. When it opened in June 2014, Selden and Young said the purchase and rehab had cost more than $4 million.
The restaurant taking over the buildings, the oldest part of which dates to the 1840s, was considered a key part of downtown revitalization. Bread and Roses LLC, the company name for Mexican Radio, paid roughly $475,000 to Capital District Regional Off-Track Betting for the property. Schenectady Metroplex Development Authority provided money that went to renovations, as well as a payment in lieu of taxes agreement; the original PILOT called for taxes to not reach 100 percent until 2026.
Mexican Radio foundered during the pandemic and was closed for more than six months from fall 2020 to May 2021, but its troubles began in 2017, when a 20-year employee was arrested by federal immigration officials, spent months in custody and…
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