The restaurant will close for good on Feb. 21, Medina wrote Wednesday on Substack. Lilia Comedor and Comala, a nearby restaurant and bar from the same hospitality group and run by former República chef Juan Gomez, will remain open. At the end of 2021, Portland Monthly named República its restaurant of the year, Eater PDX called it the city’s best new restaurant and The Oregonian/OregonLive added República to its list of Portland’s best restaurants to open since the pandemic. The following year, Bon Appétit magazine named República “Portland’s best Mexican restaurant,” adding it to its own list of America’s best new restaurants for 2022. Romero stepped down as República’s chef in 2022, reviving his own Clandestino pop-up then signing up for the Ritz-Carlton restaurant Bellpine before his death in 2024.