Through the years, the Perring Plaza shopping center mainstay has remained the family’s go-to spot, whether for Friday night dinners or milestone birthday celebrations. More recently, they celebrated Tara’s 30th there, too. They went when the pandemic hit. They went when the pandemic passed. And last week, they went to say goodbye.

The restaurant closed for good on Saturday. A note posted to the door and on Facebook thanked customers for their support, saying “We are truly honored to have been part of your most significant life events, from birthdays and graduations to first dates and celebrations of life.” The message also hinted at “a potential new restaurant opening soon.” A spokesman for the shopping center’s owner, Federal Realty Investment Trust, declined to provide the name of the tenant that will take the restaurant’s place.

With a long and labor-intensive menu, Mamma Lucia represented an earlier era in food, before the transition to more limited offerings that can be executed with just a small staff. On Friday afternoon, as metal spatulas clanged and meat sizzled on the flat-top grill, owners declined to comment on the shutdown, though an employee confirmed the last day would be Saturday.

The eatery originally opened as part of the Mamma Lucia franchise 31 years ago, in 1993, according to The Baltimore Sun archives. Fausto Illiano purchased it in 1998, according to The Sun, and changed the name to Mamma Lucia da Fausto. In its decades in operation, the restaurant “became part of the community,” Hubbard said Friday. Her voice choked with tears, she said that its closure means “part of your history is going away.”

In addition to family dinners, Hubbard came to Mamma Lucia as a member of the Ravens Roost 50, a group of Baltimore County football fans who gather to raise money for charity. The restaurant typically donated food and for a few years and let them use their space to make bags with ingredients for Thanksgiving dinners.

But it wasn’t just fans who frequented the eatery. The late Ravens defensive tackle Anthony “The Goose” Siragusa often stopped by, Hubbard said, and was friendly with Illiano. When Siragusa died in 2022, the restaurant shared a photo of him on Facebook.

On Saturday evening, Hubbard and her daughter came back to the restaurant one last time. Customers — including volunteers from the Ravens Roost — packed the restaurant, and Hubbard showed Illiano photos from Tara’s 16th birthday, the one with the limo. “It was an outpouring of love,” Hubbard said.