Bocci Trattoria closes Cary restaurant, ending local Italian chain

Bocci Trattoria & Pizzeria has shut its last Cary dining room, ending a 16-year run at 2425 Kildaire Farm Road in Lochmere and closing the final local chapter for one of the Triangle’s longtime family-owned Italian names.

The Cary restaurant served its last meal on April 4, with the closure landing over Easter weekend. Bob and Nancy Jewett, the owners behind Bocci, thanked customers in a social-media message and said they appreciated the support Cary gave the restaurant over the years. The restaurant’s website and phone line remained active after the shutdown, but digital orders were on hold and no public reopening plan had been announced.

Bocci first opened in Durham in 2004 before expanding into Cary in November 2009 and later into Raleigh. That Raleigh location opened in 2017 and closed in 2019, and the former space is now Kabab & Curry. The South Durham Bocci closed in 2024 after 20 years in business and has since been replaced by Cucciolo Famiglia. With Cary now gone, the chain has no remaining local outpost.

For Cary diners, the closure removes a familiar neighborhood spot in one of western Wake County’s most competitive restaurant corridors. Kildaire Farm Road has long been packed with chain and independent options, and Bocci’s exit adds another vacancy in a market where restaurants have to win on regular traffic, not just nostalgia. The broader pattern is hard to miss: Bocci’s former Triangle locations have already been repurposed, with newer operators moving into spaces that once held red-sauce Italian comfort food.

The shutdown also carries a local emotional charge. Bocci was part of Cary’s dining routine for a generation of families, date nights, and takeout orders, and its 16 years in Lochmere made it one of the area’s longer-running neighborhood restaurants. Its departure leaves open a question that Wake County diners know well: whether the next tenant will be another sit-down spot built for repeat business, or a faster-moving concept better suited to the area’s shifting tastes and costs.