Chatting it up behind the bar, Len Lipetri and a few of his regulars talk about what’s new and who’s seen whom. One customer ribs Lipetri, asking if G. Q. Magazine is here to interview him, garnering laughter from the others.
It all comes with owning a popular local bar and restaurant. “It’s the best part,” Lipetri said. “Many, many people who come in say that we are the Cheers of Cary.”
With co-owner Vince Galati, Lipetri takes good care of his regular and new customers, making them feel at home.
“Eighty-percent of our customers are regular,” Galati said. “We’re neighborhood-oriented. On a Friday night, the dining room will be packed, and people will be standing by tables talking to their neighbors from down the street.” The two are on a first-name basis with much of their clientele.
“As time goes on, you put more and more time into it, and you get to know more of the customers,” Galati said. “We do have bar clientele who come in to hang out four nights a week. Len more than me loves to be out there talking to people.”
It only took ten years in business to become the place where everyone knows your name. “You always dream about it being like that, but you never think it’s going to happen,” Lipetri said.
It’s All in the Family
Both men were destined for the restaurant business. As kids, Galati worked in his uncle’s restaurant in Osh- kosh, Wisconsin, while Lipetri helped out in his dad’s Chicago eatery. “I grew up in the business,” Lipetri said.
A pick-up-and-delivery-only pizza and pasta restaurant named Barros in Schaumburg was Galati’s first venture in 1987. From there, he opened a restaurant a few doors down from where Galati’s is now. That’s when he met Lipetri, who owned the coffee shop next door. “And, we became friends,” Galati said.
With ideas for a bigger place, the pair set out to find the perfect location, which happened to be where a butcher shop and print shop used to operate, just down the street. Using their own muscle, they began tearing down walls to make their dream come true. “We actually totally gutted it,” Galati said. “We did it all.”
It took the two five months to renovate and decorate. With earthy colors, wooden floors and oversized, framed posters, the decor fit the bill for a neighborhood Italian eatery and hangout.
“We knew what we wanted,” Galati said. They also knew the work they put into it would pay off. “The little operation two buildings down was so successful,” Galati said. “This wasn’t a guessing game.”
Family Secrets
There’s no doubt their success is due in part to the Italian family recipes on the Galati’s menu to this day. “The recipes are family recipes that my uncle had,” Galati said. “But, I changed them around a little to my liking. As time went on, we did create some of our own.”
“Every dish is handmade, and every ingredient fresh,” Lipetri said.
With meat or marinara sauce in almost every dish, the two set to work making 30 gallons of the staple ingredient each day. “Vince and I make that every morning, and it cooks all day long,” Lipetri said.
Customers won’t find pre-bagged cheese or canned veggies on their plates. Chefs slice fresh mushrooms, peppers and onions for the pizzas and meals.
“Our mozzarella cheese, we age ourselves, and we make ourselves,” Lipetri said. “I think that’s what makes our pizza and pasta stand out. We make our own dough; we make our own sauce.”
When it comes to new menu items, these restaurateurs listen to their customers. “Most of the new dishes are created by suggestions,” Galati said. Before any new creation is printed on the menu, customers taste test it. “We always give it away at the bar here,” Lipetri said. “A couple of plates of it.”
Some unique items include chicken, artichoke and mushroom pasta; spinach rotolo; shrimp linguini with broccoli and stromboli, a flaky crust baked around any two pizza toppings.
Making sure every dish is cooked to perfection are several cooks, with at least one owner always in the kitchen.
“At any given time, there are ten people in the kitchen,” said Lipetri, adding that chicken parmigiana is his favorite menu item.
Making it Work
It takes more than fresh ingredients and a gift for gab to make this restaurant hum.
“Keeping up with the business means each owner working 65 to 70 hours a week,” Galati said. “With four children each, the long hours away from home are the one sacrifice of the job.”
“We share the duties,” Lipetri said. “I do more organizational type things. Vince does more hands-on type things.”
Making the right hires is also an integral part of keeping Galati’s successful, the partners said. “It’s almost like when you get hired here you have to fit in,” Lipetri said. “We have a lot of employees who have been here since day one.”
“Our employees are what makes it,” Galati said. “Basically everyone comments on how friendly and nice they are. Our hope is that our employees, our waitresses and bus boys, help bring people back.”
Waitress Molly Dagostino, in her last week of work before heading back to college, said she likes working in this Cheers atmosphere. “Everybody pretty much knows everybody around here,” Dagostino said. “All the regulars know each other.”
Having a bar area separate from the dining area is also important for their customers, Lipetri said. “It’s a family-oriented restaurant,” he said. “Some people don’t want to bring their kids into a bar.”
The delicious food and friendly staff would mean nothing without what Lipetri calls the most important ingredient to running a successful restaurant. “The key to success is enjoying what you do,” he said.
