David Santos Closes His West Village Spot Louro Tonight, Blaming a Major Rent Hike

After two and a half years, chef David Santos will abruptly close his Portuguese-inflected American restaurant Louro in the West Village after dinner tonight. The restaurant's regularly rotating Nossa Mesa supper club helped score the restaurant a single star from Pete Wells and certainly had its fans, but not enough to pay for the new rent. Tonight all drinks will be 50 percent off and the restaurant will hold a fire sale for its equipment on Friday at noon. Santos will then start looking in earnest for a new space, which may be Louro 2.0 or something new. We'll have to wait and see.

Update: A rep shares that the rent was raised by 70 percent.