It's been a tough year for restaurant owners, beginning with 9/11. It so unnerved people, they just wanted to stay home. Add to it a dispirited economy, and you have a recipe for business failure that has brought down a number of restaurants, big and small, well-known and unknown. Even if they're still operating, all but a very few have had to adjust to an amorphous, skulking adversity that only a couple of years ago would have been unthinkable.Two St. Pete restaurant owners found a creative solution: They merged two struggling businesses to create one strong one.
"We were only open two months when 9/11 hit," explained Tammie Moir, of Urban Ciao restaurant in downtown St. Pete. "We weren't sure if we'd even be open another day. It's a tough time to be doing this kind of work."
Since Moir's restaurant was only open during the day, she would cook there until nightfall, and then she would trek over to Anna's Pasta on Fourth Street North and pull another full shift as chef. (Anna's was only open at night.) The evening treks stopped two months ago, when Moir and Lori Keegan, owner of Anna's Pasta, launched a joint venture.
Anna's closed, and Keegan and some of her staff, which had worked together seven years, relocated to Urban Ciao.
The result is a homey little place with a fledgling following. The surroundings are pleasant. Art galleries, the BayWalk shopping complex, and a number of vibrant businesses, bars and clubs are a walk away. Urban Ciao reminds me of a real city restaurant.
It even sort of looks like those you see crouching in the shadow of a New York City skyscraper. Its little kitchen occupies the rear of a long, narrow space, and its dining room is barely 20 feet wide.
The fusion-style menu features a nice selection of homemade pasta, salads, soups and pizzas. Tired from a busy day, I went alone one night and was glad to succumb to its peaceful embrace, cheered by its modest menu and especially grateful for an attentive, low-key waitress who guessed what I needed before I even realized it myself.
At dinner, the menu is similar to, but heartier, than the restaurant's lunchtime counterpart. In addition to light fare and crispy, handmade pizza, you'll find specialty dishes like Gorgonzola pasta with sun-dried tomatoes and broccoli ($8.95), chicken scalloppine ($11.95) and lasagna ($8.95).
I started with a half Caesar salad ($3.95), glistening greens drenched in a creamy dressing. Too much dressing. (I once asked Linda Saul-Sena, who is now a Tampa City Councilwoman, whether she thought I had overdressed for a party; she laughed musically, and replied, "You can never be overdressed." She was right, but she wasn't talking about salad.)
Anyway, it was delish, except for the croutons, which were really, really stale. However, the second appetizer I ordered, a colorful version of mozzarella and ripe, red, sliced tomatoes dotted with basil ($5.95), was as fresh as the dawn.
My entree was pasta primavera ($7.95, $2 extra for chicken and $3 extra for shrimp), handmade linguine crowned with diced vegetables — mushrooms, celery, carrot, red onion, fresh tomato, zucchini and broccoli, and steaming chunks of sauteed chicken. It was a simple dish but exactly what I wanted. I loved its contrasting textures, the softness of the pasta, the crunch of the flawless veggies.
A take-home version of chicken Parmesan over pasta ($9.95) revealed a big saddle of meat atop the same tasty, al dente linguine, spliced with a hushed tomato sauce and topped with thick dollop of melted mozzarella.
There were only three desserts, two yummy and one awful. The perfect cannoli ($2.50) went first — crunchy, blistered pastry stuffed with lightly sweet chocolate filling on one side and vanilla at the other. It disappeared instantly, as did the tiramisu ($3), a square of moist, tender and flavorful cake oozing chocolate and espresso. Conversely, a slice of cheesecake ($3) was so old that it looked like those plastic model foods you sometimes see displayed in a restaurant's window. It tasted that way too.
At lunch another day, we ordered an excellent pizza Margherita (small, $5.95, large $16.95). Mozzarella, tomato and pesto sauce layered over a thin, handmade and perfectly browned crust. Another good choice was the meatball sandwich ($6.95), meatballs, marinara sauce and mozzarella, set in thick Italian bread and oven-toasted until it sizzled.
My companion liked a mountainous baked goat cheese salad ($5.95), greens topped with French chevre cheese marinated in chopped herbs and olive oil, crusted with bread crumbs and oven-baked. It was accompanied by beets, and showered with balsamic vinaigrette.
While the food was pleasing, noon-hour service was slow. It was designed to be self-serve: You're supposed to order at the counter, and carry your own food, which would work well in larger quarters. As it was, asking us to serve ourselves meant disturbing a group of people sitting between our table and the counter.
The counterperson, discerning our predicament, sort of half-committed to bringing our food and drinks. But efficient service cannot co-exist with any uncertainty about the role of the server. We wondered what we were supposed to do, and what she was supposed to do?
We waited too long for the check, to-go boxes, refills, and were never even offered dessert. Then, at the end, there was a knotty question: Should we leave a tip for a meal that was supposed to be self-serve? We did, but lunch was neither easy nor speedy.
Still, we would go there again in a blink. We would go and cruise around the antique shops along Central Avenue. We would go and hang in the bars and coffeehouses (the Globe Coffeehouse Lounge next door is open till 3 a.m. on weekends). We would order takeout pasta to heat up at home.
"It's surprising how many (former Anna's) customers now walk over here," said Moir.
While we're contemplating that, we might also appreciate the inveterate grit of restaurateurs everywhere, a sturdy, determined lot, even when times are tough.
Contact food critic Sara Kennedy at sara.kennedy@weeklyplanet.com or call 813-248-8888, ext. 116.
This article appears in Nov 20-26, 2002.
