The Tortilla Press, one of the oldest restaurants in Collingswood, has closed

The Tortilla Press, among the early entries in Collingswood’s restaurant row, closed last weekend after almost 21 years.

The restaurant never recovered from the pandemic, said Lydia Cipriani, who with her husband, Mark Smith, opened the place in the former Collingswood Family Restaurant space in July 2002.

She cited rising costs for food and labor, and their inability to raise menu prices — a common lament among owners of BYOB restaurants who have no liquor sales to buffer them. (Asked in a 2016 interview how their business would be if they had a bar on Haddon Avenue, Smith replied: “I’d be on a boat in the Bahamas right now.”)

» READ MORE: From 2016: Q&A with Mark Smith of the Tortilla Press

Collingswood, now home to at least 30 restaurants, is a dry town.

Smith and Cipriani have a liquor license at Tortilla Press Cantina in Pennsauken, three miles away, which they opened in 2008. Business is good there and the restaurant is unaffected by the closing, Cipriani said.

“It was a great ride for as long as it lasted,” Cipriani said.

Back in 2002, Smith said, bankers had balked at their initial plans for an American bistro. The Plan B was a Mexican-influenced BYOB.

Smith acknowledged that Tortilla Press’ cuisine was “not authentic-authentic. I take a lot of my culinary training and have tweaked a lot of dishes. The things that we do that are authentic are on point. Usually, people that come in are pleasantly surprised that everybody can find something that they’re comfortable with.”