Tito Ortiz Closes Tito’s Cantina After Boating Injury
Tito Ortiz is shutting down Tito’s Cantina in Cape Coral after three years, and he says a February boating accident is the reason the doors cannot stay open. The former UFC light heavyweight champion posted the announcement late Tuesday, sitting inside the restaurant in a Tito’s Cantina shirt and cap.
“We worked hard over the last three years, but as of this coming Monday, we’ll be closing doors,” Ortiz said. “It’s hard for me because I’ve worked so hard over the last three years.”
A closing card at the end of the video lists Sunday, October 4, 2026, as the official date. Local reporting on the same post treated the spoken line as Monday, October 5. Either way, the Cape Coral run is down to its last days.
The restaurant sits at 1334 Cape Coral Parkway East. Yelp still lists it as Tito’s Cantina Mexican Restaurant, brought to the city by the UFC Hall of Famer, with a Southern California menu and a large tequila selection. Ortiz said he had never run a restaurant before this one.
“I’ve never ran a restaurant ever before in my life, and I got on a crash course the first year on how to run the restaurant, and we ran it correctly,” he said. “It was very successful the first two years, but on February 28th of this year, I got in a boating accident, and I’ve been hurt now for the last eight months.”
That accident is not new information. In June, Ortiz said he was thrown from a boat traveling about 55 mph, knocked unconscious, and woke up roughly 10 feet underwater. He later said scans showed a bulging C3-C4 disc and that he was scheduled for disc surgery on June 8. In this closing video he tied the same injury directly to the business.
“I’ve had neck surgery,” Ortiz said. “I had a concussion for over four and a half months.”
He said the absence is what broke the cantina, not the concept. Over the last eight months, he said, he has shown up maybe 15 times.
“It’s really has suffered my business a lot of being injured,” Ortiz said. “After being away for almost nine months and the injury that I’ve had and the recovery I’ve been going through, I’ve been digging a hole so deep that I can’t get myself out of it.”
He still framed the first stretch as the restaurant he wanted. UFC nights, belts given out to customers, and a menu he said his grandmother would have recognized all made the cut. He thanked a man named Chris Rowland for giving him the chance to open, and he thanked the staff for keeping the place running while he was out.
“Had to be a fine-tuned, oiled machine, and it has been,” Ortiz said. “And it’s to that point right now where everything’s run perfect.”
The money is the part that is not perfect. Ortiz said he reached the point of putting his own cash in every month just to keep the doors open.
“But putting the money in every single month to make sure the doors are open, I came to a spot in my life where I really just got to say enough’s enough,” he said.
He was clear that this is a business closing, not a move out of the city. Cape Coral is still home.
“I’m not leaving, I’m not going anywhere, just closing doors,” Ortiz said. “If anybody’s interested in purchasing this business, it’s up and running, it’s perfect.”
He also invited the regulars back for a last week rather than a quiet exit. Drink specials, food specials, and clothing specials are part of what he called a blowout sale. Saturday is still a fight night, and he said a belt will be given away.
“You guys want to come down, party with me, have some fun,” Ortiz said. “We’ll be having fight night on Saturday. We’ll be giving away a belt too. So come down, let’s enjoy this last week together.”
The timing lands in the middle of a year that already pulled him away from the octagon spotlight. Ortiz, 51, told Ariel Helwani in September that he still runs a gym and an apparel line and still wants a cleaner relationship with Dana White, but the cantina video was not about the UFC. It was about a room he built, then could not stand in.
“So Cape Coral, thank you so much, for everything you’ve given to us, for everything you’ve done for us,” Ortiz said. “I appreciate you. God bless.”
