So there we were yesterday, rattling the locked iron gates like hungry bears.

“Closed?” I said with hungredulity, which is hunger mixed with incredulity. “Closed?!”

Yeah, Frank and Fina’s Cocina, a great stand-alone Mexican restaurant on West Charleston with a blue roof, bricked-in patio, cool-ass weathervane — oh, and the best face-kicking salsa in town — closed April 27. This blog item is an official notice of the total suckdom of this sad fact.

According to a sign in the window, there’s a new location at 4175 S. Grand Canyon Drive, near Flamingo and the 215, but … so? I always thought this location completely ruled, and not just because it basically looked like a haunted house had just got back from partying in Cabo. Frank and Fina’s was also magically located halfway between, well, anywhere and anywhere. My favorite time to stop was after building up a monstrous appetite from a day spent flinging myself at nature in Red Rock. Even when I wasn’t hungry but was in the neighborhood, I’d always stop in to buy a couple huge Styrofoam cups full of the restaurant’s terrific salsa — decidedly unchunky, unapologetically hot but flavorful — which my hardcore significant other would then eat like soup.

Word I’ve heard is that the shuttered restaurant is going to be replaced by a car wash.

At the very least, in tribute, the water hoses should spray salsa. I’d wash my car in that.