Coletta’s Appling Road Location Nears Its Final Service

A familiar Memphis dining room is preparing for its last plates of pasta.

Coletta’s Italian Restaurant announced that its Northeast Memphis location on Appling Road near Stage Road will close after 28 years in business. The restaurant’s original South Parkway East location, which dates back to 1923, will remain open, and the family’s catering and private-event services will continue.

For many Memphis families, Coletta’s has been more than a place to eat. It has been a birthday spot, a post-church lunch, a family dinner room, and a dependable local name in a city where restaurant memories often stretch across generations. The Appling Road location gave Northeast Memphis its own version of that tradition for nearly three decades.

Restaurant leaders cited competition, rising costs, and inflation as part of the challenge, while also thanking customers who supported the location through the years. The decision reflects a broader reality facing many long-running local restaurants: loyal customers matter, but so do food costs, staffing, rent, utilities, and changing dining habits.

The closing will be bittersweet for regulars who built routines around the Appling Road restaurant. But Coletta’s itself is not disappearing from Memphis. The South Parkway location remains part of the city’s food history, and the continued catering business means the Coletta name will still show up at weddings, banquets, family gatherings, and private events.

As the final days approach, longtime customers may want to stop in, say thank you, and enjoy one more meal at a place that helped carry a Memphis restaurant tradition into another part of town.