Downtown Batavia restaurant suddenly closes

BATAVIA – Downtown Batavia's Verita suddenly closed its doors on Friday night. The Italian restaurant, formerly called Gaetano's Batavia, is located at Wilson and North River streets.

Owner Wendy Reed wrote in a Facebook post early Saturday that she was struggling to keep up with the rising costs of owning a restaurant while going through a lengthy divorce from former partner Gaetano DiBenedetto. She also wrote that business had been down over the past year.

She thanked all of her customers and the community for their support.

"My love for my long time employees and their families, this community and my beautiful restaurant has helped to keep me going all of this time," she wrote in the post. "There is no way I can go on like this. My health has been at risk lately, and the stress of trying to keep everything going while business has been down and desperately trying to keep up with the expenses has been too much for me to handle."

She urged the community to support other locally-owned Batavia restaurants.

Reed re-christened the restaurant as Verita in February. She had been the sole owner of Gaetano's Batavia after splitting with DiBenedetto early in the restaurant's five-year run.

Vertia's primarily Italian menu featured handmade pasta, seafood, steak, authentic Italian desserts and cocktails.