The Foxtown Grille, adjacent to the Fox Theatre in downtown Detroit, is closing at the end of the month.

Co-owner Ed Barbieri said the upscale Italian eatery across Woodward Avenue from Comerica Park was unable to secure a long-term lease.

"I'm a little disappointed. I think being there almost 20 years and they don’t offer you a lease ..." Barbieri said, trailing off. He noted that the restaurant, officially Da Edoardo Foxtown Grille, has had to deal with two different sewage floods in recent years.

Barbieri said the restaurant has been open since November 2001 "when there was nothing, nothing down there except the ballpark." Since that time, growth along the Woodward corridor has been dramatic.

Barbieri said the decision to close was made by his sister and co-owner, Ann Barbieri Kolinski.

Kolinski said the restaurant was offered only a month-to-month lease, but that that was insufficient.

"You can't operate a business on a month-to-month situation," Kolinski told the Free Press. "It's not fair to the customers and it's not fair to anyone’s livelihood."

Kolinski said the sewage floods in 2014 and 2016 both forced multiple-month closures on the Foxtown Grille, which hurt business and put the restaurant behind on its rent. Kolinski said she would likely not have reopened the restaurant following the last flood if she had known that the Ilitch family, which owns the building, did not ultimately want the Foxtown Grille to stay.

Negotiations over the lease had been ongoing for much of the last year.

Kolinski said she is "not here to bash the Ilitches," but she was critical of how she and her restaurant have been treated. "I was loyal. I held up my end of the bargain," she said.

Kolinski, according to the Metro Times which first reported on the closure, indicated her relationship with the Ilitches has been tenuous since family patriarch Mike Ilitch died earlier this year.

"It's a very unfortunate thing. I've always had a good relationship with the Ilitch family, but it's a completely different culture with Chris Ilitch," Kolinski told the Metro Times.

A message seeking comment was left for a representative of the Ilitch family.

Read more:

Decades later, La Lanterna returns to downtown Detroit

2017 Restaurant of the Year: Mabel Gray

Despite the closing of Foxtown Grille, the group will continue to have several other restaurants in the region. The family opened La Lanterna this year in Detroit's Capitol Park. There is also Cafe Nini in Grosse Pointe Farms, Da Edoardo Grosse Pointe in Grosse Pointe Woods and Da Edoardo North in Grand Blanc.

The final night of service for Foxtown Grille will be New Year's Eve.

Kolinski said the group will try to place as many of the 20 to 40 Foxtown Grille employees at other restaurants.

Contact Eric D. Lawrence: elawrence@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter: @_ericdlawrence.