quote:
Originally posted by e:
Mandomama,
I'm very familiar with the restaurant, though from many years back. My best guess at your first question (and only a guess) from what I know and have heard is that it was for financial reasons.
Here's a rough description of the history of the restaurant. They started out in that little place on Seminary Street, became quite popular for obvious reasons, and moved to the Court Street location. Once on Court St., they offered a full lunch menu which included sandwiches, pizza, and italian entrees. The dinner menu focused on the main entrees and pizza. In the early 90s, they opted to put out a small pizza buffet for the lunch crowd (3 pizzas at any one time). It was popular. In 1994, they added some main dishes, lasagna included, alongside the pizza for a "lunch buffet." In late 1994 (or was it the early months of 1995) they added a salad bar. People loved it. The lunch crowd could make a huge salad just like the wanted, and the dinner crowd could pick and choose what they wanted rather than the typical dinner salad that would ordinarily come with a meal. Then they quickly expanded into a full (though relatively very small) buffet option during the lunch hours. This generally had some minestrone, a pasta salad, the salad bar, the very popular lasagna, another entree (like a chicken/pasta/cheese dish), several side dishes, bread, and a dessert (rice pudding was a regular). This option was hugely popular among the lunch regulars who wanted to pay $6.00 for all they could eat and get out in time to get back to work.
They made a change some time later to serve "Subway" style during lunch. That is to say, customers went up to the register, ordered their food, paid, filled their own drink, took it to the table, etc., with no servers on board. Dinner continued as usual. I feel that the option to drop the servers led to a downfall in business, but that's just a personal speculation. Years passed, and eventually I think that finances led to the move. (There may have been a reference in the TD to one of the owners and finances, though I can't assert that without having it in front of me.)
I don't think the quality of the ORDERED FROM THE MENU options went down after the buffet. It was the same recipe, same cooks, same ingredients, same everything. I do, however, agree with you that, for example, the lasagna people might get from the buffet wasn't quite up to par with the lasagna they would get if they had ordered off the menu and had it individually prepared for them. Such is the nature of buffets. It's not as fresh, and it's made in larger proportions. Again, the nature of the beast... You get what you pay for.
The sandwiches at the Court Street location were always as good as they were at the Seminary St. location, as were the pizzas and everything else they had on the menu at the time. At the new location in Town Plaza, everything is still the same that you remember from the old place on Seminary Street.
You can't go wrong with any pizza you want. If you're looking for a sandwich, I recommend the Chicago Fire (I can't remember if that's the name they still call it), the Reuben, or the Veggie, but they're all good.
Enjoy!
i think ricatoni's was the death of stephano's, that and the fact they didnt serve alcohol.