SAN DIEGO, Calif. (KGTV) — It's a bittersweet ending to 2021 for one Mission Beach restaurant.
Acapulco Bay Seafood is closing its doors after just two years.
Pouring one of the last drinks from his restaurant, Ricardo Hernandez is reflecting on his time working at the restaurant.
“We opened in November of 2019 right before the COVID pandemic," he said. “It was started by my father in law and it was his dream. One of the reasons he's no longer here one of the reasons is he got COVID.”
Hernandez said it was the pandemic that ultimately shut down his father-in-law’s dream.
“We’re more of a tourist community. So it's always fluctuating it goes up and down, up and down," he said. "But yeah, when the if, if there would have been no pandemic, ourselves and many other businesses that have closed, which still be open."
On New Year’s Eve, he and his family want to celebrate one last time with the ones who made their business possible.
“It's already a bittersweet note that we want to leave with a happy with a with a smile on their face and to be conferred a nice one last time put a smile on our on our customers," he said.
Hernandez is closing the door with a positive outlook.
“Maybe we’ll regroup. We’ll dialogue about it again, probably in about six months. And we'll see how we're going to move forward if we're gonna just let our dreams go out into the sunset or we'll come back and do something else," said Hernandez. "Even if you fail, follow your dreams. You might fail but you learn something [from] it."
When the clock strikes midnight, the Hernandez family will hand over the keys. They said the new owners of the building will take over.