Lo Presti’s at Maxwell’s restaurant closing to make way for downtown Hamilton development

Hamilton will lose a downtown establishment when Lo Presti's at Maxwell's serves its last customer later this month.

Just as important as the high-quality food at the Jackson Street East Italian restaurant, David Barclay will miss the fine-dining experience.

It's an event," said the longtime customer.

Kalipso Terpoy, who has owned the restaurant with her husband Terry since October 2008, said Barclay was a client way before we even took over."

Terry, 67, has been a chef in Ontario restaurants for more than 45 years. Kalipso has worked with him at restaurants for the 38 years they've been together.

My husband's there at 8 o'clock in the morning. He doesn't leave until about 9 in the evening, every day, six days a week," Terpoy said.

And now it is time to relax, Terpoy said: The world showed us the way" with COVID and a development coming.

Lo Presti's will serve its last clients April 23, after more than four decades of history in the core.

The closure comes as no surprise.

They sold the building in spring 2021, but kept the restaurant open for another year to let staff find new jobs in a hopefully better economic situation, Terpoy said.

She is thrilled that her team, many of them Lo Presti's employees since she took over, are all in a fine position for the closure, having secured future employment or alternate plans.

One staff member, Werner Gierl, started at Lo Presti's in 1981 at the previous location.

The restaurant - in its current form at 165 Jackson St. E. - was created in a 1994 merger by former owner Sam Cino.

Cino closed the original Lo Presti's, located at the corner of Jackson Street and Catharine Street North, and merged it with Maxwell's, which he purchased from famed Hamilton restaurateur Max Mintz in 1989. The LoPresti brothers, who founded several restaurants in the city, worked for Mintz at the Chicken Roost, a King Street East eatery from 1948 to 1986.

Barclay has high praise for Gierl, he knew everybody, and he knows everybody and they all know him."

Part of the reason the restaurant has such appeal, Barclay says, is the professionalism and standards that staff like Gierl have maintained over the years.

Terpoy couldn't be happier about the customers Lo Presti's attracts. We have the best clients that any restaurant could ever want," she said. The support, the friendship, the kindness they have shown us ... it's just very bittersweet for us."

Customers who have become family have been booking up all the tables to say a final goodbye. Dinners are completely full," Terpoy says, and lunches are filling up quickly."

Jeremy Kemeny is a Hamilton-based web editor at The Spectator. Reach him via email: jkemeny@thespec.com