Another longstanding south-side restaurant is closing.

Casa D'Angelo, 3402 Fairfield Ave., will close Feb. 20, although it will honor a prior commitment to host a fundraiser for Bishop Luers High School on Feb. 21. It's the third longtime restaurant to close on the south side in the last five months. Hartley's on Fairfield Avenue closed in October after 25 years at that location. On Saturday, Lambro's steakhouse, a fixture on Tillman Road for nearly 41 years, closed due to economic reasons, according to the owner.

Now Casa is closing for similar reasons.

“We have not had the traffic flow at that location for years,” said Tom Parisi, director of operations for the Casa Restaurant Group, which operates five restaurants in Fort Wayne, including the one on Fairfield. The restaurants are owned by Tom and Sharon Casaburo.

He said revenue has steadily declined at the Fairfield restaurant since Lutheran Hospital left the neighborhood in 1992. The success of the other four restaurants helped keep the Fairfield operation going until it was no longer practical, Parisi said.

“We've done our best to keep that restaurant open,” he said. “It was a very emotional decision for us, as owners and operators, to make.”

During the 2008 ice storm, the restaurant was closed for a week and a half. “Trust me, we came close to just closing it then,” Parisi said.

Asked why longtime, well-liked south-side restaurants are closing, Parisi said, “It's a domino effect.” He cited the closing of Southtown Mall, Lutheran's exit and the closure of George's grocery store just down Fairfield from Casa. Then the south-side restaurants started to leave. In addition to the three already mentioned, Catablu and Chappell's Coral Grill both moved out of their Broadway locations last spring, although Chappell's has since reopened.

The Casa Restaurant Group began in 1977 when Jimmy D'Angelo and Tom Casaburo opened their first restaurant on Coldwater Road. They bought the Fairfield location, which was called Gouloff's Paramount Grill, in 1982. D'Angelo retired in 1989; now a second generation of the Casaburo family is involved in the business.

When Casa's on Fairfield closes it will leave four “sister” restaurants behind: Case Mare, 4111 Parnell Ave.; Casa Grille, 6340 Stellhorn Road; Casa! Ristorante, 7545 W. Jefferson Blvd.; and Casa Grille, 411 E. Dupont Road.

Employees at the Fairfield location were told of the closing Saturday; they've been offered a transfer to any of the other Casa locations. “There will be no layoffs,” Parisi said.

Casa owns the Fairfield building and plans to leave it empty for a while, Parisi said. Anyone interested in it can e-mail him at tparisi @casarestaurants.net.