On the day after Christmas, Loui’s Family Restaurant announced it would be closing for good. The news triggered a pilgrimage of old customers and long-departed waitstaff, who had less than a week to get to the diner on Providence’s College Hill for a last meal.
Julia Schluger’s fiancé brought her from Manhattan.
“We drove this morning three and a half hours and went to two different Enterprise (Rent-A-Cars) to get a car to come here,” Schluger said, “so Roie could have his day at Loui’s.”
Roie Levin, the fiancé, graduated from Brown University more than ten years ago. The “usual” for him back then was the “Nebraska Sunrise,” one of many off-menu items advertised with crayon or marker illustrations on the restaurant’s crowded walls. The order is a sunny-side-up egg on top of a corn muffin, served with bacon and homefries.
“It’s polarizing,” Levin said. “I mean, they’re not light on the grease.” But at Loui’s, Levin said, “one man’s grease is another man’s treasure.”
The eccentric Providence diner closed on the last day of 2025. During its 79 years in business, Loui’s loudly announced its presence on a quiet street near Brown with a colorful facade of tile mosaics and statues mounted onto the walls and roof. The diner served a diverse clientele of Ivy League and art students, cops, misfits, truck drivers, and anyone else who might be hungry around the restaurant’s famous 5 a.m. opening time.
The owners, Johnny and Albert Gianfrancisco, said they are retiring. They own the building and said they will lease the restaurant space to a young group of friends, who plan to renovate it and open a more upscale coffee and pastry shop.
“It’s the only instance of a business shutting down in which I’ve had the privilege of bearing witness to people grieving it like it is actually the loss of a human life,” said Joseph Vincent Cianci, a lifelong Loui’s customer and grandson of legendary Providence mayor Vincent “Buddy” Cianci.
“This is where I took the most important women of my life,” Joey Cianci said. “Anyone I ever loved, this is where I took them.”
For many customers, the charm of Loui’s was not so much about the food, though the portions were large and the prices were reasonable; it was the photo albums of old customers, the oil paintings of the staff members, and the ceramics and mosaics made by Johnny Gianfrancisco.
“It was its own museum,” Cianci said. “This place was really a reflection of the people who came in here and patronized it.”
Tom Reilly, who attended the nearby Rhode Island School of Design, said he once drew a picture of Guy Fieri on a napkin and left it behind with his dirty dishes. The next time he dined at Loui’s, the drawing was hanging by the cash register, he said.
“There’s so much homogeneity now. It’s rare to find a place like this these days,” said Kristen Anderson, a Providence native living in Austin, Texas.
Anderson made it back to Loui’s for its last week in business. As she worked through a large hamburger and fries at a crowded counter, Anderson struck up a conversation with a college student from Mexico City sitting next to her who stayed on campus during her winter break. The two soon made plans to go out together on New Year’s Eve.
“That’s the kind of thing that happens at Loui’s,” Anderson said. “You make fast friends. It’s a family restaurant, with a family atmosphere.”
The Gianfrancisco family
Loui’s opened in 1946 when its founder, Louis Gianfrancisco, returned to Providence from military service during World War II. He’d immigrated from Italy ten years earlier. His sons Johnny and Albert later took over the diner. Louis died in 1999.
“In the old days when I was kid, we had 18 family members on one shift,” said Johnny Gianfrancisco. One of his first memories, he said, is of peeling potatoes at Loui’s as a 3-year-old.
Johnny, now 75, and Albert, 66, both said in interviews that they’re getting too old to run a restaurant. But the other reason Loui’s is closing, Johnny said, is he doesn’t like how the business is changing.
As restaurants do more takeout, orders pour in through delivery apps, spitting out tickets telling Johnny and Albert what to make. Often, the people picking up the food aren’t the ones eating it.
“I think it’s very impersonal,” Johnny said. “I don’t really like that kind of work, making it for the machine there.”
Several waitresses who worked for the Gianfranciscos returned last week to say goodbye to the brothers.
“When I worked here, Louis fired me every day,” Krista Van Dale, a former waitress turned regular, said with a laugh. “And Johnny would say, ‘See you tomorrow.’”
“Johnny’s the saint,” said Erin Gray, another former waitress, “and Albert is an angel.”
Gray credits Johnny with saving her life as a teenager and, much later, officiating her wedding to one of the cooks at Loui’s.
“I used to come in here and he would tell me to go to school because I’d be skipping school, sitting at a table and smoking cigarettes,” Gray said. “I’d say no, and then finally he gave me a job when I was 18.”
“He helped me change my life,” she said.
Gray said Loui’s was like a “wormhole” where people who didn’t fit in anywhere else came together. “Johnny would accept everybody,” Gray said, “and that’s what makes him the saint.”
In his own words, Johnny’s hiring philosophy was, “If I can do it, anyone can do it.” His approach to making and collecting art: “I never throw anything away.”
Albert, the angel, is more gruff. Asked if working at Loui’s was a labor of love, he replied simply, “No.” Did he like working there, though? “Eh,” Albert said, “I don’t mind it.” Will he miss anything about this place? “My morning coffee,” Albert said. “That’s it.”
Closing time
After closing time on a recent weekday, Johnny sat down with a regular who has become a friend. They opened letters from people around the world who couldn’t make it back to Loui’s in time.
“He’s loved. Big-time loved,” Kim Gallman said of Johnny. “He knows it.”
“I feel loved,” Johnny said. “I feel loved. I feel loved. I feel loved. Yes.”
Loui’s served its last meal on New Year’s Eve around 3 p.m. Johnny said he wants to travel and make more art during his retirement. He and Albert plan to remain roommates at their home in Providence’s North End.
