Tony Mazzola was ready to call it quits after nearly four decades of owning Italian restaurants. The lease was expiring on the O’Fallon building that housed his latest version of Mungo’s, and he was thinking about heading to The Hill in St. Louis to find a job working for someone else.

Then Mazzola, 67, of Fairview Heights, got an offer he couldn’t refuse. Owners of a historic brick building on Main Street in Collinsville persuaded him to rent the lower-level storefront and become part of a dining resurgence in downtown Collinsville. He opened Mungo’s Uptown on June 15 at 100 E. Main St.