diff --git a/mistral/config.py b/mistral/config.py
index ae0d254d7..414cad2c5 100644
--- a/mistral/config.py
+++ b/mistral/config.py
@@ -148,6 +148,11 @@ api_opts = [
     ),
     cfg.IntOpt(
         'api_workers',
+        deprecated_for_removal=True,
+        deprecated_reason='This option has become useless and mistral-api'
+                          'will start only one worker now. If you want '
+                          'more workers, consider starting mistral-wsgi-api '
+                          'with a wsgi server instead.',
         help=_('Number of workers for Mistral API service '
                'default is equal to the number of CPUs available if that can '
                'be determined, else a default worker count of 1 is returned.')
diff --git a/releasenotes/notes/remove-api_workers-option-a6210b5f1c0863b6.yaml b/releasenotes/notes/remove-api_workers-option-a6210b5f1c0863b6.yaml
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..e1b110fe8
--- /dev/null
+++ b/releasenotes/notes/remove-api_workers-option-a6210b5f1c0863b6.yaml
@@ -0,0 +1,8 @@
+---
+deprecations:
+  - |
+    Deprecate the ``api_workers`` option for mistral-api. This option was used
+    to spawn multiple workers when using oslo.service wsgi server.
+    Since we moved to cheroot, this is not possible anymore.
+    If you want to use more than one process to handle Mistral API requests,
+    you should consider using mistral-wsgi-api behind a wsgi server.