After 22 Years, Limones Is Closing in Asheville

Chef Hugo Ramirez and Amy Cavanaugh are retiring, ending a two-decade run for one of downtown Asheville’s favorite dining rooms.

By Eric Barton
4:37 p.m. ET, Nov. 3, 2026

AUTHOR BIO: Eric Barton is editor of The Adventurist and a freelance journalist who has reviewed restaurants for more than two decades. Email him here.

The bowl of lobster nachos that should begin every meal at Limones is probably the thing I’ve eaten the most out of any single dish in Asheville. The only real challenger is the pan con tomate at Cúrate, and on most nights, I’d still take the nachos.

So the news landed harder than most restaurant closings: Limones, the Mexican-Californian restaurant on Eagle Street, will close Nov. 14 after 22 years. Chef Hugo Ramirez and co-owner Amy Cavanaugh announced it today on Instagram, saying they are retiring from the restaurant industry. Reservations after Nov. 14 will be canceled. Ramirez and Cavanaugh thanked their staff, past and present, and asked guests to keep supporting Asheville’s local restaurants. They signed off, “Thank you all for 22 unforgettable years.”

Limones Restaurant Asheville lobster nachos

Ramirez and Cavanaugh opened Limones in 2004. Ramirez grew up in Mexico City, learning to cook from his mother and sister, and then trained in the San Francisco Bay Area, where French-influenced Californian cooking shaped his approach. He worked and trained under some of San Francisco’s most talented chefs before moving to Asheville. The menu changed with the seasons and whatever local farmers had that week.

The lobster nachos remained a menu staple until they up and disappeared months ago. But the ceviche sampler remained, as did the three cheese chile relleno and street corn. The margarita list ran deep, from a blood orange to a tamarindo. Dessert meant churros with hot chocolate, bread pudding, or tres leches.

The Limones spicy margarita was how I’ve started many weekends, and the dining room was the right setting for it: colorful, full of Mexican art, and warm in the way that makes a table feel like a night out. Limones sits in the historic J.A. Wilson Building on Eagle Street, in the stretch of downtown long known as The Block, once the center of Asheville’s Black business life. It became the kind of place Asheville reached for on a special night, and reservations were a must for much of its run.

Asheville has plenty of good restaurants. It doesn’t have another Limones, and 22 years on one street is its own statement.

My wife and I had a delightful Christmas Eve dinner there a couple years ago, and we swore we’d make it a regular thing. We never did. November 14 is the last night to fix that.