New owners, same recipes: LaVilla Family Dining & Pizzeria set to reopen its doors - MLive.com

GENESEE COUNTY, MI - An old family recipe has been passed down from one generation to the next to keep bringing smiles memories to a community that has longed for its return.

After a two-year hiatus, LaVilla Family Dining & Pizzeria, 8372 N. Saginaw Road, in Genesee Township near Mt. Morris is set to open up its doors once more to the community beginning Tuesday, April 6.

“I really am proud and looking forward to just bringing back a staple in Mt. Morris and giving Mt. Morris more options of places to eat,” said Jen Bryan, one of the restaurant’s new owners. “Ironically, we’ve been told that the actual opening day that we’re opening on, is exactly two years from the day that it closed. We did not plan it that way.”

Bryan, along with her boyfriend Tom Choate who owns SmokeyButts Catering, has spent the last year renovating, reestablishing, and learning old family recipes for the restaurant’s grand opening.

Although Bryan and Choate have been passed along ownership of the restaurant, the couple have insisted in keeping the traditional dining experience the same as it has been for four decades.

“We are reopening with the same name and we have the support of the original owners, and they’ve given us the recipes,” Bryan said. “It’s all the same authentic food and then we’ve added quite a few things to the menu, some sandwiches and salads, more options for lunch.”

Opened in 1974 by then owners Tino Icaboni and Dave D’Arcangelis, LaVilla closed its doors two years ago after serving residents up dishes and being a staple in the community for 45 years.

Icaboni originally came to the United States from Italy in his 20′s - he’s 72 now. His mother owned a bakery in Italy while he was still a child.

When he immigrated to the U.S., Icaboni brought along some family secrets that helped establish his unique style on food.

“He has a very distinct connection with his home country and so he brought all those recipes with him when he came over,” Bryan said. “The pizza here at this restaurant was always one of my favorites pizzas, as a kid, same for my boyfriend. The dough is just different. It has a different texture and flavor and it’s just really, really good.”

The couple grew up in Mt. Morris and always ate at the restaurant with their families.

They hold fond memories of visiting LaVilla in their childhoods, like Choate, when he played football for the Panthers, coming in every night before a game or dining at the restaurant when the football team would host award ceremonies.

“It has a lot of family memories for us,” said Bryan, as she thought back on her memories of coming to the eatery.

After 20 years of Bryan working in management at FedEx and Choate running his own catering business, the couple’s dream of always wanting to open their own restaurant was finally coming true.

The couple said they’re both “super proud” and “excited” to be the new owners of the town staple and to have been given the opportunity to carry on Icaboni’s legacy, but they’re also feeling “a lot of pressure to make sure that we provide the same products to the customers” and that their recipes “not only tastes the same on opening day, but tastes the same every day even when Tino doesn’t come in every day anymore.”

Since the couple announced the restaurant’s comeback, the couple have received outstanding and positive feedback.

“We have almost 1,800 followers on Facebook now and it’s growing everyday,” Bryan said. “A lot of our posts are trending, reaching anywhere from 23 to 25,000 people.”

She kept the restaurant’s old phone number and has since received non-stop calls from people wanting to place an order, thinking that the restaurant is already open.

The community has taken notice in the couple’s efforts in the restoration process. Bryan has had friends stopped by to help them with the renovation and cleaning of the establishment.

However, other times, the couple has been approached by people they hadn’t even met before to offer their services and volunteer in renovating the place because of how excited they are the restaurant is opening again.

“We had a lady who owns a cleaning company, she came in and donated hours just to help us when we were doing the deep cleaning in the kitchen,” Bryan said. “I never met her before, I didn’t know her, she just reached out to me on Facebook and said she was excited and wanted to help.”

Other times, people have actually come in, sat down at a table wanting to order, even though there was construction equipment still laying around the dining room floor as well as tables.

“We’re both blown away by the amount of response,” Bryan said. “It’s been amazing, it’s been overwhelming really.”

The couple plan on partnering up with local organizations and Mt. Morris Consolidated Schools - one of them which has already booked the restaurant for their first meeting.

Bryan has also partnered up with The Brough Bakery in Clio to become the supplier of their garlic bread and bruschetta. Icaboni’s garlic bread has a special memory in Bryan’s childhood, as she would munch on it every time she visited with her family.

For opening day, Bryan and Choate expect to the restaurant to be at the capacity allowed in accordance with the state’s COVID-19 restrictions.

The days leading up to Tuesday’s opening have been used to prepare the restaurant for its official first day.

Icaboni has been present at his old restaurant on several occasions and has been very hands-on in the kitchen teaching Choate and the other cooks how to prep and make everything - even the secret sauces and the dough.

The former owner has also taken the time to show Bryan and Choate some of the restaurant supply stores that he used to go to and pick up products.

“He’s (Icaboni) going to be here opening day, him and Dave. They’re both going to be here, supporting us in the kitchen on that first day,” Bryan said. “We did do a friends and family event last week, a practice run, and that went really, really well, and it gave us a lot more confidence than we had prior to that, that we would be able to pull this off.”

Some of the top menu items include lasagna and pizza, as well as the antipasto salad made with pickles.

Aside from their pizzas and lasagnas, Bryan wants to eventually add breakfast to the menu as she believes that “there aren’t a lot of options for people.”

“One of the things that we are going to do down the road too, is as soon as we get up and running and we feel comfortable that we’ve nailed it, then we’re going to add breakfast to our daily routines,” she said.

The couple also plan on having feature items and trying some other things out to see what people think and to get feedback from the community.

The Genesee and Flint Chamber of Commerce will be hosting a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the restaurant at 10 a.m. Tuesday. The Fox 103.9 FM will also be in attendance doing a live feed from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. and offering some specials to go along with the opening.

“We missed the restaurant too,” Bryan said. “To be able to not only get our dream of having a restaurant, but also to have the restaurant that we both grew up coming to and that Mt. Morris has missed them, we’re really excited for.”

LaVilla Family Dining & Pizzeria will be open Sunday through Wednesday from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m., and Thursday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 11 p.m.

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