Mona Lisa Restaurant, an iconic Italian restaurant in San Francisco's North Beach neighborhood, is closing by the end of the week after nearly five decades in business.

Mona Lisa Restaurant, the iconic Italian spot on Columbus Avenue, will serve its final ravioli on Friday after 46 years, co-owner Filomena Florese told SFGATE. She cited rising expenses, as well as she and her husband and co-owner Maurizio Florese starting to look toward retirement.

The Mona Lisa is the most widely recognised and most famous painting ever. Although the King of France, Francis I, and Napoleon Bonaparte both fell in love with Leonardo da Vinci's masterpiece, she ended up in the Louvre,

Leonardo da Vinci started the iconic 'Mona Lisa' painting in Italy but finished it in France, where he sold it to the French King, François I.

It was the Monday morning of August 21, 1911, the weekly closure day of the Louvre during the summer holidays, when an Italian mason named Vincenzo Peruggia carried out the most astounding art heist in modern times when he stole the Mona Lisa during the day, around 7 am.

Masked thieves stole priceless jewels from the Louvre on Sunday morning. The Paris museum has suffered a string of successful art heists, dating back to the theft of the Mona Lisa in 1911.

A week after thieves stormed the Louvre and ripped eight priceless pieces from France’s Crown Jewels, the country is nursing a deep cultural wound.

Every traveler has a mental bucket list. You know the one — those postcard-perfect places you’ve seen in movies, history books, or Instagram feeds that you absolutely must visit before you die. The Mona Lisa’s enigmatic smile,