19 Dearly Departed Restaurants We Still Miss

It's a sad day in restaurant news. After over a decade of business, Downtown's Tazza Caffe closed its doors on New Year's Day. We will miss Tazza and hope it finds a new home soon. Until then we will reflect on some of RI's most-missed restaurants (in no particular order). So please join us in raising your glass to these ghosts of restaurants' past. 

1. 3 Steeple Street

Though Fat Belly's is keeping Providence's oldest industrial building alive and well, we still miss this place.

2. 729 Hope

They did some things well, others not so much, but it was always a neighborhood hotspot and sadly remains vacant.

3. Adesso

First its original location off Thayer Street closed, then its latest incarnation on Federal Hill followed. Now it lives on in North Providence.

4. Atomic Grill

Was it a restaurant? A nightclub? We can't quite recall, but we do know we had some good times there... hazy, but good.

5. The Barnsider

Though we're glad to see this historic location spring back to life as Mile & A Quarter, we still kind of miss the salad bar.

6. The Gatehouse

Many a veteran of the Providence restaurant scene passed through this kitchen.

7. Cactus Grill

While the decidedly more upscale Barstow that took its place is a welcome improvement, we're never ones to argue with a cheap margarita.

8. Chinese Laundry

As it turns out, opening one of the city's most expensive restaurants at the beginning of the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression wasn't such a good idea.

9. Cuban Revolution

The newer, bigger space was fun, but we'll always miss the little hole in the wall on Washington Street where it all started (along with the equally missed New Japan on the same block).

10. Davio's

Once Buddy's favorite hangout lives on at Patriot Place.

11. DownCity

Did Gordon Ramsay make a last ditch effort to save this place, or put the final nail in its coffin? Opinions remain divided.

12. Everyman

The irony is that a place called The Everyman, with its proudly working class vibe was replaced by a place called The American, which pays tribute to the robber barons of the Gilded Age.

13. Florentine Grill

This North Providence location has been a bit of a restaurant revolving door through the years, but this remains perhaps its most popular incarnation.

14. Spaghetti Warehouse

Oh, the childhood memories.

15. Tini

How can you not miss a place that served something called the "Tini Weenie"?

16. Twist on Angell

With precious few restaurants in Providence offering that cool, below-the-sidewalk city vibe, we miss hanging out at the bar here.

17. Walter's Ristorante d'Italia

Walter carries on his legacy in Cranston, but we were sad to see one of the old lions of Federal Hill move on.

18. Wings To Go

One of our favorite relics of old Thayer Street.

19. McCurdy's Junction House

This location has been a graveyard for several restaurants (including a post-Thayer Street Wings to Go), but this was our favorite one.

Plus, 6 more that we miss but couldn't find photos of: La Prima Cafe, Spoons, Oak, Empire, Big Fish, New Japan... Did we miss any? Share your memories of these or any dearly departed Providence restaurants below.