Scotts Valley Italian restaurant In Vino Veritas shut its doors last week without so much as a farewell to Scotts Valley.

On Wednesday, Oct. 21, scraps of paper with the word “Closed” were found taped to the front doors, and a look inside revealed empty tables with maroon napkins still neatly folded and silverware at each setting. Owner and chef Luca Rubino did not return calls this week.

“I was pretty shocked myself,” said Sharolynn Ullestad, executive director of the Scotts Valley Chamber of Commerce. “In my last conversation with him, we were looking ahead.”

In Vino Veritas was to be one of four featured restaurants at the chamber’s joint mixer with Los Gatos and Campbell on Thursday.

Ullestad tried to reach Rubino, without success.

“It just makes me sad,” she said.

Nathaniel Muñoz was a waiter at the restaurant for a few months before it closed. He and other staff members were in for the lunch shift when Luca told them he was closing the restaurant.

Muñoz said Luca said he had “lost the passion,” and that as a result “the food wouldn’t be the same.”

The restaurant opened in 2006 and was run by Luca Rubino and his sister, Aldina Rubino. The pair had previously opened La Bruschetta in Felton in 2000, before selling it when they opened In Vino Veritas.

The restaurant shares a building in the Kings Village Shopping Center with the Scotts Valley Library and Choi’s Tae Kwon Do. It is not visible from Mt. Hermon Road, the busiest thoroughfare in Scotts Valley.