The Full Story
Bandido's Mexican Restaurant, in Depth
Permanently closed. Bandido's Mexican Restaurant at 6536 E State Blvd, in the Georgetown Square shopping center on Fort Wayne's east side, closed for good as Bandido's on October 27, 2022. If you are searching for it because you remember eating there, this page is here to tell you straight: the restaurant is gone, and this is the record of what it was.
Bandido's was a family-owned Mexican restaurant chain in the Fort Wayne area, founded in 1980 by the Schindler family. By the time the Georgetown Square location closed, the brand had been feeding this city for more than four decades, which in restaurant years is a long, unusual run.
What Closed, and Why
When the Georgetown Square location shut its doors, owner Jimmie Schindler II pointed to a problem a lot of restaurants have named out loud in recent years: difficulty finding staff. It was not a slow-sales story or a lease dispute, at least not the version that was made public. It was people. Without enough hands to run the room, the room does not open.
The space at 6536 E State Blvd did not sit empty for long. After Bandido's left, the location was split between two new tenants: Guadalupe's Mexican Grill and New York Pizza and Grill Kabobs. So if you drive to the old address today expecting Bandido's, you will find that address doing something else now.
The End of the Brand in Fort Wayne
The Georgetown Square closing was not quite the end of the story. The chain's last remaining Fort Wayne location, on Winchester Road, kept going a few more months before it closed for good on January 31, 2023. That date marks the real close of the book: the end of Bandido's more than 40-year run in the city. The Winchester Road spot was sold to Arcos Restaurante Mexicano, so that address, too, is now a different restaurant.
If You Came Looking for Bandido's
People keep searching for places long after they close, and that is a fair reason to keep an honest page up. The short version: there is no Bandido's to visit in Fort Wayne anymore. The Georgetown Square building on the East State corridor now houses Guadalupe's Mexican Grill and New York Pizza and Grill Kabobs, and the former Winchester Road location is Arcos Restaurante Mexicano. If you are just after Mexican food on this side of town, the directory has other options worth a look, including Don Jose's Mexican Grill.
Bandido's earned its place in Fort Wayne the hard way, by staying open for a very long time under one family's name. This page is not a live listing and does not pretend to be one. It is a marker for a local chain that ran its course, so that anyone still looking for it gets the truth instead of a phone number that no longer rings.