Saratoga gets grumpy

There's not really a lot about Steve Deorio, who owns and runs The Grumpy Italian in Saratoga that is very grumpy; He loves to cook, he loves to serve customers and he loves the fact that for families in the Valley, his restaurant represents a step back into a bygone era where families shared stories and tales while eating classic Italian-American fare.

At least for an hour or so a week, anyway.

That, he said, was his goal when he purchased the restaurant, formerly known as Platte River Pizza on West Bridge Street in Saratoga.

Deorio grew up in the North Side of Denver in an area with a lot of Italian families, and hoped with the restaurant, he'd have the opportunity to provide the kind of family-focused food and dining he remembers growing up with as a kid.

"I wanted to give people the experience of sitting on the stoop," Deorio said. "The way we did 'social networking' back then was everyone came over on Sunday and everyone would dig in, we'd talk, we'd play games."

"I just kind of wanted that back."

And he's pretty serious about it. A big sign on a wall of the restaurant advises patrons there is no Wi-Fi in the establishment; the sign suggests people talk to one another instead of sitting across from one another staring at smartphone screens.

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Like so many Italian –American families, Deorio said that food played a central part of those Sundays when friends and family would congregate. And for Deorio, the importance of food when it's time for families to spend time isn't just a old cliché from Mulberry Street in New York or Bloomfield Avenue in North New Jersey: it's a serious passion.

Everything in the restaurant is made in-house from scratch, he said, including his own recipe of sausage. Spelled "salsiccia" but prounounced "sal-seeche" by those in the know, the recipe blends spicy hot pepper flakes with fennel, giving a taste different than most store-bought Italian sausage.

The crust for the pizza is made fresh every day and proofed for hours before it is baked into an East Coast style thin crust. The sauce is made every day, starting early in the morning where it stews for hours before it is served to anyone.

"My passion is cooking," Deorio said. "I love to do it, I love Italian food and cooking and I love my background and heritage."

The menu features pizzas, sandwiches and pasta dishes, as well as daily specials that vary. Deorio describes the food as "red sauce Italian," a phrase that is used to describe traditional, stick-to-the ribs Italian-American fare, heavy on the tomato sauce, meatballs, sausage and pasta. "Red sauce" Italian is not the type of modern Italian cuisine that one would likely find at most big-city restaurants.

Instead, it's meant to be attractive to those looking for a more traditional, homemade Italian food they might have grown up with as a kid.

"There's a saying; what's old is new again," Deorio said. Not only is he hoping to capture a demographic that may be seeking out classic Italian-American food, but also a value proposition.

"I wanted to offer something for the family, for the ladies and gentlemen out there, they can take the whole family out and feed the whole family for $35 or $40," he said.

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Deorio learned his recipes from his family. But a lot of what he knows about the restaurant business came from his time producing a food talk show on AM radio in Denver years ago called "The Gabby Gourmet."

"I learned a lot about what makes restaurants work, I learned what people really appreciate," he said.

Besides cooking for his own family, Deorio said his only other go at anything close to a restaurant was when he owned a café called "Espresso Bellisima," which he described as a "maybe 10-by-12-foot shack where I made coffee and served sandwiches."

For the most part though, Deorio spent most of his adult life working with plants. He described gardening as another passion of his and says one of his goals for the restaurant is to grow enough basil to use in recipes.

Commercial basil costs $32 per pound, he said, and the Grumpy Italian uses a lot of basil.

Another thing Deorio said he would like to do is establish a take-a-slice, leave-a-slice system. The system, popular in Philadelphia-area pizza establishments, allows patrons to join up with the restaurant owners to buy a slice of pizza, represented by a ticket. Those who could use a slice of pizza buy maybe don't have the money on them can take a ticket off the wall and get a slice.

It's one other way in which Deorio says he'd like to give families in the Valley the ability to help out others and strengthen community bonds and-at least in some way-experience the simplicity and strong sense of community of a bygone era.

So why-for a guy who is all about good food and all the ways it can bring families and communities closer together and who seems to embody magnaminity-did Deorio call the place "The Grumpy Italian"?

"It's a play on words," he said. Simply put, he wanted people to walk out having gotten something more than they expected.