Tony Rigatoni's resides in a historic home half a block away from Washington Avenue. White holiday icicle lights were adorning the eaves and front porch, making this restaurant the most charming and inviting facade of all the businesses in Golden.
Walking up the wooden porch steps and opening the screened porch door felt like entering someone's home, not an Italian restaurant. In the front foyer was a hostess stand, and upon hearing the old wooden door close behind me, a young girl appeared from dim the back hallway to seat me in the front dining room near the fireplace. The entire restaurant was painting an unusual dark, saturated green color, and the white holiday icicle lights were also wrapped around the crown molding of the high ceilings throughout this old house.
Traditional Italian music and opera singers played quietly in the background as I surveyed the details of the room I occupied alone. Each table was covered in vinyl red and white checkered tablecloths, and the dark wood stain moldings made me feel like I had stepped back in time to an old fashioned mom-n-pop Italian diner. Maybe I should even be wondering if the owner and his brother were playing cards with the Italian mafia in the basement.
The restaurant was quite empty, which I attributed to the late afternoon and snowy weather, yet for some reason I sat alone in this room for several minutes, without seeing another human being, even the hostess had disappeared from her perch as quickly as she had appeared when I entered. The ticking time seemed to pass by slowly while sitting in what felt like a stranger's home, but finally my waiter appeared and introduced himself. I asked him some questions I had about the menu, but he was unable to answer them and even seemed unwilling to try to find the answer for me from someone else who worked there. I ordered my usual Italian fare default: chicken parmesan.
The side salad arrived promptly, but the House Italian dressing did not have good balance of oil and vinegar (too much vinegar). My chicken parmesan was also disappointing; the edges of the chicken were dry and hard, and not enough cheese had been melted over the meal for my liking. The red tomato sauce was the best part, it had a hint of sweetness to it. I also received a roll with my meal, but it was not served warm and it tasted familiar, like a roll out of a bag from the store. I ended up not eating most of the chicken.
In my experience, Italian restaurants usually have to-die-for desserts, so since my meal left me with much disappointment, I asked the waiter what desserts were available. There was no dessert menu, and off the top of his head all he could think of was a brownie and ice cream. I then had to ask him if he would go check on the dessert list for me, so he did. He came back and told me that the desserts change weekly, but today the brownie and ice cream was all that they had. I also asked if they make their desserts on the premises and he said no.
For all the visual charm, Tony Rigatoni's did not meet their mom-n-pop Italian look with the food or service to make this a restaurant worth a second visit. On an interesting side note though, my waiter was very knowledgeable and eager to talk about one aspect of this house: its history. He told me that the house was built in the late 1800's. I asked him who were the people in the black and white family photos hanging on the wall, and he told me that those were pictures of the original owners of the house, who are actually relatives of the current owner. Then in an almost secretive way, he told me that the owner's wife says she sees ghosts of the original owner's daughters playing in the front window of the room that I was in. I asked him how often she seems them and he said it is almost a weekly occurrence for her, but he had never seen them. The waiter also indicated that this is not the only reported instance of ghosts in the house, but he didn't seem to know any more details.
Click the link above to watch the video, right-click
to save the linked file, or get all this site's videos in your iTunes
by subscribing to the Podcast/
Videocast 
.
(Need technical support?)
1 COMMENTS:
Anonymous said...
I am a former employee of "Tony's" and I can tell you that the ghost sightings and occurances are very true and very real. I had many encouters with something in my 2 years of working there. Maybe you could be next
Thursday, February 22, 2007 3:25:00 PM
Post a Comment
LINKS TO THIS POST:
Create a Link
<< Home