By William Carroll
Managing Editor
For those who remember what the restaurant Casa Napoli was like in its glory days, you are in for a treat, as the original owners are planning to bring back the famous area favorite in its original location.
Original owner Bill Rinehart and chef Richard Bowen have decided to return to their old stomping grounds and bring the people of Elmore County an authentic Italian meal.
According to Rinehart, he and Bowen were the original partners who opened the restaurant around as he called it, “the turn of the century,” before selling it to another group who eventually change the location and the recipes significantly.
“This is the original Casa Napoli, with the original owners and the original chef,” he said.
Bowen, who is a third generation Italian chef comes at his background honestly, his grandparents were from Naples, Italy and he grew up in the New York/New Jersey area learning how to make authentic Italian cuisine.
“My grandparents has a homestyle deli, we made a lot of things by hand, like real mozzarella, pastas and lot of other really great things,” he said of his childhood. “We (his family) lived upstairs from the deli, so it was just part of our lives.”
Bowen said that he and Rinehart decided to bring back Casa Napoli for a variety of reasons.
“Bill and I are retired and we both like to eat,” he said. “We realized that there were few good places we could go to get a really good meal.”
Bowen said that Casa Napoli will serve the same type of food it served when it was originally opened, namely old style southern Italian cuisine.
“It will be like an Italian family going to their grandma’s house for a family meal,” he said.
Both Rinehart and Bowen said that when the restaurant was originally in existence it won a number of awards and was very popular with residents throughout the area. Rinehart specifically noted that it had been rated as a “four forks” restaurant.
“When we were here it was a huge success and we won a lot of awards,” Bowen said.
Bowen said that the goal will be to provide high quality dishes for reasonable prices noting that he will be in charge of every item that goes out to the customers.
“If it isn’t top quality or I don’t like it, it will not go out,” he said noting he has over 50 years in the restaurant business. “For me this is personal, I take this real seriously, I am real fussy when it comes to the quality.”
Bowen said the menu will include a lot of homemade items and always the best and freshest ingredients.
“We have purveyors from New York, Atlanta, all over,” he said. “You have got to have all of the right stuff if you are going to make it the right way. You can’t just have any old tomatoes for marinara sauce.”
Rinehart said they are even going to replant their herb garden in the back to try to provide the freshest herbs possible
Rinehart said it is their attention to detail that is part of why they are bringing the restaurant back.
“Everybody in town has been asking me when are we going to be bringing this back,” he said. “We are proud of the fact that when people came here they knew the difference in quality, they knew the real deal.”
Work is ongoing at the original location on Highway 231 south of Wetumpka and near the currently closed Welcome Center. Rinehart said he anticipates being open for business possibly as early as late November.
“We would like to be reopened by the holidays,” he said.
Rinehart noted that initially the restaurant would be open for dinner and Sunday brunch.
“We’ve been thinking about possibly being open for early birds say around 3:30 or 4 p.m.,” he said. “We are still discussing our schedule.”
Bowen said the menu would be simple but that he primarily wants to serve the customers.
“I like to come around and talk to the folks who come in,” he said. “If perhaps somebody says to me, ‘can you make this?’ I will try to make it for them if we have the right ingredients.”
Rinehart said that the ambience for the restaurant will be very nice and welcoming and that one of the draws will be the wine list.
“We are going to have a really nice wine list, like we used to have,” he said. “We are going to have a variety of super Tuscans, Chiantis.”
“We’ll have Sangiovese, a variety of different types of Chiantis and a really good house wine,” Bowen added.
The restaurant will also increase employment in the area, Rinehart said they anticipate hiring 10-11 “really good” employees.
“We want professional people, people who really have a love for it,” Bowen said. “For anything to be really good, your heart has to be in it.”
As for heart, Bowen has quite a bit of it for the restaurant.
“I can’t think of a place I’d rather be,” he said.
