Marco’s Pizza on Tejon Street in the heart of downtown Colorado Springs closed last month after a 10½-year run.

La Tavola Hospitality Group, a Kansas City, Mo.,-based franchisee, shut the doors of its Marco’s location at 12 S. Tejon on Feb. 11, said Krystal Rosenthal, a La Tavola owner-operator.

Though the downtown store had “pretty strong” sales at lunch, it otherwise didn’t perform as well as three other Marco’s locations in Colorado Springs also operated by La Tavola, Rosenthal said. Those locations remain open for business and are doing well, she said; La Tavola had taken over as franchisee for the locations four years ago.

At the same time, Rosenthal said La Tavola was reaching the end of its lease for its downtown space, which also made it an opportune time to close.

The closure will allow La Tavola to focus on running its locations at 4935 Centennial Blvd. in northwest Colorado Springs, 4492 Austin Bluffs Parkway on the northeast side and 9420 Briar Village Point in the north part of town, Rosenthal said. An east-side Marco’s at 1580 Space Center Drive is operated by another franchisee, she added.

The downtown Marco’s employed about a half-dozen workers, some of whom moved on to the other locations when the restaurant closed, Rosenthal said.

La Tavola doesn’t have any immediate plans for additional Marco’s locations, though Rosenthal said she wouldn’t rule out anything going forward.

The downtown location opened in August 2013, Gazette archives show. Before that, the 1,928-square-foot space, which includes a basement, had been home to other restaurants, according to the website of commercial brokerage Fountain Colony, which is marketing the property.

Marco’s, a national pizza chain, was founded in 1978 in suburban Toledo, Ohio, according to its website. It describes itself as one of the nation’s fastest-growing pizza brands and now has more than 1,200 locations in 34 states, Puerto Rico and the Bahamas, its website says. Much of its growth in recent years has come via franchising locations.

Despite Marco’s closure, downtown remains home to several restaurants that specialize in pizza, including Louie’s, Bambino’s Urban Pizzeria, Fat Sully’s, White Pie Pizzeria, Poor Richard’s, Borriello Brothers, the Downtown Panino’s and Domino’s.