Rizzuto’s First ever “Mille Ferrari” on June 13th in our Westport location was a tremendous success! Thanks to Paul Bova of the New England Ferrari Club, members of the club filled our parking lot with red hot Ferraris and Maserati of Greenwich brought some amazing convertibles. Grand Prix New York turned the back lot into a GoKart track where the kids had a ball winding their way through the course. Inside the fun continued with GoSimRacer’s Virtual GT East Simulator. Grown-ups had their chance to race their way through some pretty some courses and test their skills.
The restaurant was hopping with race enthusiasts enjoying Rizzuto’s signature Italian fare, a glass of wine or cold beer, while watching the Formula 1 Grand Prix Du Canada. This day of Italian food, wine and cars also raised funds for the Make-a-Wish Foundation.
Check out Mille Ferrari photos on our site. If you missed it, no worries, we’re already planning next year’s event!
In other news, Rizzuto’s welcomes a few new faces to our management team.
Anne Whalen was recently promoted to the General Manager position of our Bethel restaurant. Anne’s been with us for 2 years now and began as a bartender in our West Hartford location when we first opened. She’s a take charge type of gal and a year later was brought to Westport to help get things off the ground in the assistant manager position. Throughout our growing pains in Westport, Anne remained steadfast and was instrumental in our customer relations and dining room management, and could run a jammed packed restaurant with grace and ease. Last month Anne took on the roll of General Manager in Bethel, our first restaurant, and has taken “our baby” on with the same dedication she showed when she first started this journey.
Christopher Hodson, our new General Manager of West Hartford is settling rather nicely and helping Bill Rizzuto and our team of chefs take this restaurant to whole new level. Christopher, a.k.a. CJ, came to Rizzuto’s via Milos, a high-volume, fine dining Greek restaurant in Manhattan. Prior to that CJ made his way through an intensive training program at Michael Jordan’s Steakhouse & 23 Sport Café, at Mohegan Sun Casino in Uncasville, CT, eventually working his way to both front and back of the house management. His experience with large, high volume restaurants makes him a perfect for Rizzuto’s and we are looking forward to working with CJ on West Hartford’s new beginning. CJ is also a certified professional golfer – so we know where to find him on his days off!
Anthony Kessalmark is our new General Manager in Westport. Anthony is our “Brooklyn Boy” who recently moved with his wife and two children to Weston, CT to be close to the restaurant. A stickler for service and food quality, his 3 years spent at Carrabba’s Italian Grill was great training ground in hospitality management. Anthony also owned his own restaurant before, a fine dining New American restaurant in his home town of Poughkeepsie, NY called Maia Restaurant & Lounge. In addition to running the show in the restaurant, Anthony is helping to get our market off the ground this summer, another extension of the Rizzuto’s brand.
So now you’ve met the new team – drop in and say Hello and please do let Anne, Christopher, and Anthony know if there’s anything they can do to make your time with Rizzuto’s an even more enjoyable one.