The mystery surrounding the sudden closing of the city's Burritovilles continues with today's NY Times not being able to find many more answers than when we reported their disappearance Thursday. The Times talks to various New Yorkers who lament the restaurant's departure, including one top notch host who had been planning to stop by Burritoville tonight "because we're having guests." As for detractors, the Times looked no further than Gothamist commenters from Thursday's post. The paper does add that a Burritoville rep claims some restaurants should reopen in two weeks and that the chain's closing was news to its employees who showed up to work with no notice that its doors wouldn't open. The blog Supervegan hopes that those employees won't get screwed out of a paycheck as they claim workers did when Veg-City Diner (owned by the founders of Burritoville) also suddenly shut its doors back in 2003. more ›

A tipster wondered if local Mexican chain BurritoVille had gone bankrupt, seeing as how their website now redirects to Google. We've spent the last few minutes frantically trying to get someone, anyone on the phone at the various BurritoVille locations around town, with no success. A call to BSI Corp., which seems to be the corporate owner, did get answered, however. When asked if we had reached BurritoVille, the man told us, "Not anymore." He said they closed last week and would not provide any further information. Wikipedia backs him up. Dios Mio, man! Last month the East Village BurritoVille on Second Avenue closed down, but it hardly seemed like the beginning of the end for the reliable if mediocre local franchise. Anyone out there notice a shuttered BurritoVille in your travels? We never had a chance for one last goodbye burrito! more ›