GON
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I may get banned and shunned from the food forum, but thought this article was a fun read on Buca De Beppo. I hope you have the time to read the article, pretty fascinating.
Of note- I have only been to Buca De Beppo once, just a few months ago in Albuquerque, NM- and was very underwhelmed. But that doesn't take away from this read. Sadly, the likely current downward spiral I experienced at Bucca De Beppo is likely going on at many like restaurants in the US.
And have to ask- do you have any local old school great food reasonably priced Italian places in your area? Last one I ate in was in downtown Shreveport, LA. Can't recall the name, but it was a cool experience.
Some quotes from the article:
But unlike the checked-tablecloth joints opened by immigrants of Sicily or Naples, Buca di Beppo was not founded by an Italian. It had no roots in Italy and no connection to the Italian-American immigrant experience. Yes, a place showcasing enough pope paraphernalia to border on evangelistic was founded by a Lutheran from central Illinois who told me that the best Italian restaurant in his hometown growing up was a Pizza Hut.
In 1993, Phil Roberts was an outgoing Minneapolis restaurateur with a successful steakhouse and a sleek, bistro-style Northern Italian restaurant. But he was obsessed with the red sauce joints he frequented when he’d visit his sons in college in the Northeast. “The way they displayed wealth was in the food they served,” he explained. “They kept the Christmas lights on all year-round. They hung up velvet paintings of Mount Vesuvius.” But he noticed that as the owners were aging, and Italian-Americans became more assimilated into mainstream American culture, these red sauce spots were closing—and there were certainly none like them in Minneapolis.
He wanted the decor to be tacky, the portions to be enormous, the atmosphere to be boisterous. He figured it didn’t matter that he wasn’t Italian in the slightest. There were also almost no red sauce joints in Minneapolis at the time, so diners wouldn’t have anything to compare it to. This was a restaurant, he says, “that was intentionally in bad taste, but good-natured bad taste.” The kind of place where the average diner could feel superior, and not feel bad about being puzzled over a wine list, or not knowing what kind of fork is used for a salad.
https://getpocket.com/explore/item/...ed-sauce-chain?utm_source=pocket-newtab-en-us
Of note- I have only been to Buca De Beppo once, just a few months ago in Albuquerque, NM- and was very underwhelmed. But that doesn't take away from this read. Sadly, the likely current downward spiral I experienced at Bucca De Beppo is likely going on at many like restaurants in the US.
And have to ask- do you have any local old school great food reasonably priced Italian places in your area? Last one I ate in was in downtown Shreveport, LA. Can't recall the name, but it was a cool experience.
Some quotes from the article:
But unlike the checked-tablecloth joints opened by immigrants of Sicily or Naples, Buca di Beppo was not founded by an Italian. It had no roots in Italy and no connection to the Italian-American immigrant experience. Yes, a place showcasing enough pope paraphernalia to border on evangelistic was founded by a Lutheran from central Illinois who told me that the best Italian restaurant in his hometown growing up was a Pizza Hut.
In 1993, Phil Roberts was an outgoing Minneapolis restaurateur with a successful steakhouse and a sleek, bistro-style Northern Italian restaurant. But he was obsessed with the red sauce joints he frequented when he’d visit his sons in college in the Northeast. “The way they displayed wealth was in the food they served,” he explained. “They kept the Christmas lights on all year-round. They hung up velvet paintings of Mount Vesuvius.” But he noticed that as the owners were aging, and Italian-Americans became more assimilated into mainstream American culture, these red sauce spots were closing—and there were certainly none like them in Minneapolis.
He wanted the decor to be tacky, the portions to be enormous, the atmosphere to be boisterous. He figured it didn’t matter that he wasn’t Italian in the slightest. There were also almost no red sauce joints in Minneapolis at the time, so diners wouldn’t have anything to compare it to. This was a restaurant, he says, “that was intentionally in bad taste, but good-natured bad taste.” The kind of place where the average diner could feel superior, and not feel bad about being puzzled over a wine list, or not knowing what kind of fork is used for a salad.
https://getpocket.com/explore/item/...ed-sauce-chain?utm_source=pocket-newtab-en-us
