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Health & Fitness

North Hills Flashback: Monte Cello's

After spending the past ten months near Charlotte, I’m back in Pittsburgh, where I am re-launching and expanding my tutoring and academic enrichment business in the North Hills after spending the past year teaching first grade. Although I’m looking forward to enriching the minds of Pittsburgh’s future leaders, I’m also excited to be home, as my family and many of my close friends reside in the North Hills. Although it may sound trivial, I’m also looking forward to eating legitimate pizza once again.

Charlotte has its share of culinary gems. It may not be the highest-ranked city on the map for foodies, but I’ve found my share of good, local restaurants. Nearly everyone who has lived in Charlotte has, at one point or another, met someone over a cup of coffee and a pastry at Amélie’s French Bakery. Transplanted Pittsburghers and those who enjoy Irish cuisine go to Fitzgerald’s Irish Pub, where all three professional Pittsburgh sports teams are televised, former Steelers stop by for autographs, and Iron City is served by the bottle. Seafood lovers flock to Captain Steve’s, a family restaurant known for its free hushpuppies and large portions of fresh fish.

If I want a quick breakfast in Uptown, a shepherd’s pie to savor while watching the Penguins, or a shrimp dinner in a relaxed setting, I’m in good shape. However, if I’m craving pizza while in Charlotte, my options become limited.

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In Pittsburgh, pizza parlors are seemingly everywhere. Both local and chain shops dot the landscape in all regions of the city. Fewer options exist in Charlotte, and those that are around are generally national chains. There aren’t a lot of Pizza Huts, although Donato’s and Domino’s are both fairly common. While I do like Donato’s and have eaten at one of their Charlotte locations, I also enjoy patronizing local businesses. I had heard plenty of good things about Lorenzo’s and decided to give them a try. Much to my horror, the cheese pizza I ordered tasted about as bland as the food listed as “pizza” on the menu of Hampton Middle School circa 2000.

As I picked away at the tasteless Lorenzo’s pie, giving it a ride on the esophagus express only because I was quite hungry, I began to pine for my favorite Pittsburgh pizza and hoped some magical force would change the mundane mess of dough and cheese in front of me into a Joe’s Special from Monte Cello’s.

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Monte Cello’s has long been one of my favorite restaurants and well-loved by many in the North Hills. Personally, I’ve been eating there, mostly at the Wexford location, for a quarter century; for years, my family and I ate at Monte Cello’s at least once a week. In fact, my friends and family surprised me with a surprise sixteenth birthday celebration at none other than Monte Cello’s.

The question many people had for me--why Monte Cello’s? To find the answer to that question, it is imperative to examine the history of the restaurant, which makes for a great North Hills Flashback topic.

Monte Cello’s, like most other small businesses, had a very humble beginning. The original restaurant sat around what is now Ross Park Mall Drive, which provides access to the mall. Picture a small brown building across the street from the entrance to Waldorf Park Apartments and you’ve got Monte Cello’s as it appeared on June 5, 1980. According to Joe Wadlow, one of the restaurant’s founders, the original building was formerly occupied by Mazza Winery, which moved after plans were made for the building to be torn down to make way for Ross Park Mall. (Source: Mr. Wadlow’s Facebook post in the Ross Township Historical Society). Of course, those familiar with the history of Ross Park Mall know how long it took Frank Nascone’s project to come to fruition; the eviction notice did not come until thirteen months later. At that point, Monte Cello’s relocated to its more familiar location at the corner of McKnight and Siebert Road, enlarging the space three years later when a neighboring tenant, Sol’s Sporting Goods, closed. (Source: Mr. Wadlow’s Facebook post in the Ross Township Historical Society).

Monte Cello’s quickly became popular with North Hills residents thanks to their excellent pizza. However, as the placemats once said, “we’re more than just pizza”. Customers began to come to the restaurant to dine on spaghetti, calzones, hoagies, and other delicious menu items. The Wexford location began offering a popular lunch buffet option, offering a wide choice of pizza, pasta, salad, and soup. Within a few years, Monte Cello’s had become a household name for those looking for a good family dinner. The lounge, while small, offered a relaxing setting for a Penguins game and beer with friends.

Tremendous success throughout the 1980s and 1990s led to an expansion. Monte Cello’s began popping up throughout the northern suburbs, opening stores in Cranberry, Shaler, Hampton, and Zeilenople. There is even a downtown location, located on Seventh Avenue in the heart of the city.

Both the Ross and Wexford locations have changed significantly over the years. After nineteen years at the corner of McKnight and Siebert, Monte Cello’s of Ross relocated to the corner of Babcock and Thompson Run in 2000, coinciding with the restaurant’s twentieth anniversary. The new location offered a greatly expanded dining area and also brought about some aesthetic changes. Monte Cello’s became more upscale in an attempt to draw customers away from Olive Garden, a fixture at McIntyre Square since 1991, and Bravo, which took over the burnt-out shell of Nickleby’s five years later. While the restaurant didn’t exactly capture the “date night” crowd of either of its competitors, it did cement its status as the premier family Italian restaurant of the North Hills.

At the same time, the Wexford location began to renovate. Taking over the former hair salon next door, the lounge was enlarged exponentially while the dining room’s capacity neared that of its Ross counterpart. New items such as a dessert tray debuted, again helping the restaurant move upmarket. Monte Cello’s of Wexford was significantly remodeled again last year, trading up for upscale booths. The days of advertisements on tables and placemats were long over, as were the Pepsi logo glasses (which replaced the earlier red Coca-Cola glasses).

Despite all the changes, many things have remained unchanged. Monte Cello’s still offers excellent food, a plethora of pizzas, great service, and family-friendly prices. Family-friendly events, such as visits from Santa Claus, also have taken place at Monte Cello’s locations over the years. The restaurant has also remained true to its Pittsburgh roots in spite of becoming fancier through the years. Steelers players have made appearances at some locations and the menu features a wrap called the “Pittsburgh Wrap”, complete with french fries. (Trust me--nobody outside of Pittsburgh aside from transplanted Pittsburghers “gets” the concept of putting fries on a sandwich).

No article about Monte Cello’s would be complete without a paragraph dedicated to Joe’s Special, one of the pizzas on the menu. Joe’s Special is truly one of the special flavors of the North Hills. The pizza is thicker than the traditional Monte Cello’s offering and features a spicy sauce plus extra cheese.

For 33 years, Monte Cello’s has been a cornerstone of the North Hills. From its humble beginnings as a startup shop in a building slated for demolition to its fleet of seven restaurants today, Monte Cello’s is a shining star in a sky filled with chain restaurants. Despite competition from much larger corporations, including other Italian restaurants, Monte Cello’s has held its own thanks to good people, great food, and a willingness to combine the best of the old with exciting new ideas. I’m looking forward to seeing what the next 33 years have in store for Monte Cello’s, one of the best small business success stories in North Hills history.

NEXT TIME: TBA! If anyone has a request or suggestion, please let me know! Otherwise, I'm sure I'll think of something!

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