TV Restaurants

What Happened to Mom & Dad's Italian Restaurant? (Defuniak Springs, FL)

Closed verified

As of September 2026, Mom & Dad's Italian Restaurant has closed — confirmed via Yelp, June 2026.

Primary source
Yelp ·
Secondary source
restaurantguru.com ·

Last verified

What the source shows: Yelp's listing for 2184 US Hwy 90 W carries a permanently-closed tag last updated June 2026; a Restaurant Guru listing for the same address is separately tagged 'Temporarily closed.' No specific closure date was found in the sources reviewed.

  • Season / episode Season 6, Episode 4
  • Original air date
  • Address 2184 US Hwy 90 W, Defuniak Springs, FL 32433

Interactive map — loads when you ask for it.

Everything on this map is also in the list below.

© OpenStreetMap contributors © CARTO

What happened after Restaurant: Impossible (Food Network)?

Restaurant: Impossible (Food Network) visited DeFuniak Springs, Florida for "Drowning in Debt," which aired May 12, 2013. As shown in the episode, owner Carolyn Cuneo had run the roughly 24-year-old family Italian restaurant together with her late husband, George, and had continued operating it largely unchanged in the years following his death, even as food quality slipped and debt on the business grew to an amount the episode put at nearly $100,000, a figure presented as central to the family's crisis and to Carolyn's reluctance to change a business she and George had built together.

Chef Robert Irvine's team retrained the kitchen on freshly prepared Italian dishes in place of the inconsistent food the show found coming out of the kitchen, refreshed the dining room's decor and lighting, and worked with Carolyn on updated financial and operational practices meant to start addressing the restaurant's debt load going forward rather than simply papering over it.

The two-day process closed with a relaunch dinner for the Cuneo family, staff and local guests, built around the refreshed menu and dining room and framed on the show as a chance for Carolyn to finally update a business she had been reluctant to change since her husband's death.

Sources reviewed for this entry give a mixed but broadly consistent picture of the restaurant's more recent status, without pointing to one specific closure date. A Yelp listing for the address, 2184 US Highway 90 W in DeFuniak Springs, carries a permanently-closed tag last updated in June 2026, and a separate Restaurant Guru listing for the same address is tagged "Temporarily closed." Several older third-party menu-aggregator pages for the address remain online but do not display a current operating status. No dated news report naming a specific closure date was found in the sources reviewed, and no reopening of the restaurant has been confirmed as of the sources reviewed for this entry.

Featured on Restaurant: Impossible

Season / episode
Season 6, Episode 4
Original air date
Episode title
Drowning in Debt
What was featured
24-year-old family Italian restaurant's stalled menu and debt addressed
Role
Featured restaurant
Name on the broadcast
Mom & Dad's Italian Restaurant

Frequently asked questions

Is Mom & Dad's Italian Restaurant still open in 2026?

As of September 2026, Mom & Dad's Italian Restaurant has closed — confirmed via Yelp, June 2026.

What happened to Mom & Dad's Italian Restaurant after Restaurant: Impossible?

Restaurant: Impossible (Food Network) visited DeFuniak Springs, Florida for "Drowning in Debt," which aired May 12, 2013. As of September 2026, Mom & Dad's Italian Restaurant has closed — confirmed via Yelp, June 2026.

Is Mom & Dad's Italian Restaurant permanently closed?

As of September 2026, Mom & Dad's Italian Restaurant has closed — confirmed via Yelp, June 2026. We publish a closure only with a dated source behind it, and we say plainly when it has not been independently confirmed.

Where is Mom & Dad's Italian Restaurant located?

2184 US Hwy 90 W, Defuniak Springs, FL 32433. That is the address on the record as of September 7, 2026.

What season and episode of Restaurant: Impossible featured Mom & Dad's Italian Restaurant?

Season 6, Episode 4 of Restaurant: Impossible, first aired May 12, 2013. The episode is titled “Drowning in Debt”.

Did the makeover last at Mom & Dad's Italian Restaurant?

The episode first aired May 12, 2013. Our most recent check was September 7, 2026 — 13 years later —: As of September 2026, Mom & Dad's Italian Restaurant has closed — confirmed via Yelp, June 2026.

What do reviews say since Restaurant: Impossible?

Sources reviewed for this entry give a mixed but broadly consistent picture of the restaurant's more recent status, without pointing to one specific closure date. We summarise what dated sources report; we do not publish our own rating.

Is Mom & Dad's Italian Restaurant still using the Restaurant: Impossible menu or branding?

The two-day process closed with a relaunch dinner for the Cuneo family, staff and local guests, built around the refreshed menu and dining room and framed on the show as a chance for Carolyn to finally update a business she had been reluctant to change since her husband's death. Anything newer than our last check on September 7, 2026 may not be reflected here.

Every status on this site carries a confidence label and a date, and names the source it rests on. Read the Editorial & Corrections Policy for what each label means and how quickly we act on corrections. The questions above are generated from this record's own published fields — we never publish a question we cannot answer from the data.

More from Restaurant: Impossible

Every Restaurant: Impossible restaurant we track

Other TV restaurants in Florida

All Florida locations

Nearest tracked restaurants

Visit info

Address
2184 US Hwy 90 W, Defuniak Springs, FL 32433
Venue type
restaurant
Official website
None found

Businesses change fast. Always confirm directly with the restaurant — call ahead, or check its own current website or social media — before making plans around anything on this page.

Sources

  • Yelp — https://www.yelp.com/biz/mom-and-dads-italian-restaurant-defuniak-springs
  • restaurantguru.com — https://restaurantguru.com/Mom-and-Dads-Italian-Restaurant-DeFuniak-Springs

See something wrong?

We work hard to keep every status accurate and dated, but restaurants change fast and our sources aren't perfect. If something here is wrong — a status, a name, an address, anything — tell us what you're seeing and where you saw it, and we'll check it.

See something wrong? Tell us →

Share this page

Record ri-069 · last verified .