What Happened to Anna Maria's After Restaurant: Impossible (Food Network)?

On Restaurant: Impossible (Food Network), Robert Irvine visited Anna Maria's Restaurant, a more than 25-year-old Italian restaurant in Dunmore, Pennsylvania, owned by Mary and Jack Sileo. According to the episode, Irvine described the kitchen conditions as severely neglected, saying on camera that they ranked among the more troubling he had encountered while filming the series, describing extensive neglect and health concerns that went beyond a typical decor or menu problem. Over two days and a $10,000 budget, Irvine's team cleaned and rebuilt the kitchen, reworked the dining room, and revised the menu, while pushing the Sileos toward stricter food-safety and operating practices going forward.

The episode aired February 22, 2012, and immediately drew local attention: Scranton ABC affiliate WNEP reported that a nearby competing restaurant's owners said they no longer wanted the same kind of televised intervention after seeing the backlash Anna Maria's received, while some patrons interviewed by the station said the on-air portrayal of the kitchen seemed exaggerated for television, even though the restaurant had passed its most recent local health inspection before the episode aired. WNEP also reported that business at Anna Maria's roughly tripled in the immediate aftermath of the broadcast. Despite that initial bump, WNEP later reported the restaurant was set to close, and Anna Maria's permanently closed in September 2013, about a year and a half after the episode aired; the family cited ongoing health issues as a factor, and the property was reported sold in October 2013.

No source identified during this research shows the restaurant reopening under the Sileo family or a successor at the same East Drinker Street address. The Sileo family had run Anna Maria's as a neighborhood fixture for decades before the show's involvement, and WNEP's coverage noted that reaction in Dunmore was sharply divided between residents who felt the episode fairly depicted long-standing problems and others who viewed the portrayal as unfair to a local institution. That division persisted in public commentary well after the broadcast.