Lupita’s Closes Ferguson Township Location

A family-owned Mexican restaurant has closed one of its State College area locations, citing increasing costs and staffing challenges.

Lupita’s Authentic Mexican Food has shut down its original location in the Uni-Mart center at 3180 W. College Ave., Ferguson Township, and will focus on its restaurant at 312 W. Beaver Ave. in downtown State College, the eatery’s owners wrote in a Facebook post on Wednesday.

“After a lot of thought, we’ve made the tough decision to close Lupita’s Unimart for the remainder of our lease…,” the owners wrote. “This does not come easy as we were given the option to renew. But with increasing costs in our town, and the amount of traffic Sheetz is pulling in right across the street, we decided it was not the best fit moving forward.”

Staff has been spread thin operating both locations, leading to what had been a temporary closure of the West College Avenue restaurant, they added. The team from there will move to the downtown location.

“With the lease coming up, it just made sense to bring our team together downtown,” the owners wrote. “There it give[s] us the best shot to keep serving you strong, and we didn’t want to miss out on that momentum.”

They stressed that free parking spaces for customers of the downtown location are available behind the restaurant and on the first level of The Palmerton building parking garage on Highland Alley.

Owners Maria Guadalupe Rojas Orozco (nicknamed Lupita) and Emilio Lopez Ramirez —both of whom moved to central Pennsylvania in 2001 from their small hometown in Oaxaca, Mexico — opened the first Lupita’s in 2019 inside the Uni-Mart complex.

After a stint operating a second location in Milesburg, they opened the downtown State College Lupita’s in 2022.

“Thank you for taking something so small and turning it into more than we ever imagined!” they wrote on Wednesday. “We can’t thank this small-town community enough. We truly love the valley and want to continue serving all families with our downtown store.”