Tim Aten Knows: New pizzerias, Italian eateries ready to launch

Carucci’s

Carucci’s Restaurant and Pub is replacing Lima Restaurant & Pisco Bar, which closed in June in The Village Falls commercial center off U.S. 41 East, south of Rattlesnake Hammock Road in East Naples. The goal is to launch the new restaurant in October.

The large space is a hidden gem tucked away in the complex with spacious outdoor seating on a covered wooden deck along a courtyard water feature. Since the complex was built 40 years ago, the unit at 5047 Tamiami Trail E. has been home to many other restaurants and bars, including the final stop for the English Pub, which relocated from Linwood Avenue. It also has been the Waterside Caribbean Cafe, O.B.’s Cornerstone Sports Bar & Grill, Norm’s Restaurant & Lounge, Legends Steakhouse, The Falls Supper Club and The Pump Room.

Fred Carucci and Eileen Marcinkowski have been working to transform the former Lima into Carucci’s since signing their lease in July. Work included removing an interior wall and building an entirely new, larger bar — a sports bar.

“We’ve done a lot of remodeling, a lot of renovating, a lot of cleaning,” said Marcinkowski, a longtime local resident.

Carucci has worked as a personal chef and making prepared meals to go since relocating to Naples three years ago, so this will be his first local restaurant. He will lead the kitchen and back of the house, while Marcinkowski will run the bar and the front of the house. The couple met at the former Tiki Bar that Marcinkowski managed on the East Trail.

Chef Carucci’s love of cooking has deep Italian roots.

“My grandparents on both sides were born in Naples — Naples, Italy,” he said. “Really, I got the passion from my grandmother. My grandmother was a really good cook.”

Before becoming a chef, though, Carucci was a young pilot, a Learjet airlines captain, for eight years. During that time, he invested in a restaurant and caught the hospitality bug. A restaurateur now for 35 years, Carucci previously operated restaurants in New Jersey.

“I had a place like this for 17 years, also called Carucci’s,” he said. “I had a sports bar a mile from the Meadowlands. That was my first restaurant. Then, I opened a couple of restaurants for other people. The last one was a steakhouse called Prime 259, also in New Jersey.”

The new Carucci’s extensive menu will lead with a dozen pasta specialties. In addition to traditional dishes, such as meat lasagna, linguine with clam sauce, Fettuccine Alfredo, Cacio e Pepe and Penne alla Vodka, expect the chef’s Cavatelli Carucci — pasta with grilled chicken, spinach, roasted peppers and sun-dried tomatoes in garlic-infused extra virgin olive oil. On Sundays, he will serve his traditional Grandma Carucci’s Sunday Sauce with a choice of pasta, house-made meatballs, sausage and braciole.

Carucci’s also will feature entrees with steaks, seafood, chicken, lamb and veal.

“Our house special is going to be a stuffed veal chop,” Carucci said.

The double-cut veal chop is stuffed with spinach, prosciutto and mozzarella cheese, finished in a mushroom wine sauce.

The dessert menu will feature Italian favorites such as tiramisu, cannoli and gelato, but Carucci is especially proud of his poached pear, filled with mascarpone honey cheese and topped with candied walnuts.

The presentation of dishes obviously is important to Carucci. “You eat first with your eyes,” he said.

The 160-seat Carucci’s has a full bar with happy hour 3 to 7 p.m. daily. The restaurant will be open for lunch and dinner daily.

In the back area that previously was a banquet room, the couple plans to add some pool tables and dart machines.

“We’ll have live music on the weekends. Probably during season, almost every day; sometimes inside, sometimes outside,” Marcinkowski said.

Sicilia Mia

The LoDuca family is cooking up plans to rekindle a longtime local pizzeria tradition in the Naples area. In doing so, a national pizza franchise spot is becoming a mom-and-pop New York-style pizzeria with Sicilian roots.

Sicilia Mia Pizzeria is targeted to open by the end of October in the former space of Papa John’s on Pine Ridge Road near U.S. 41 North. The new pizzeria for takeout and delivery will be operated by Vito LoDuca, his cousin and business partner William Annino, and his wife, Teena LoDuca. They took over the longtime pizzeria unit at 1026 Pine Ridge Road on Sept. 19. Papa John’s operated there for decades in front of The Oasis in a Pelican Place outparcel building shared with Enterprise Rent-A-Car.

The pizza business is baked into Vito LoDuca. His father, Giuseppe LoDuca, operated Giuseppe’s Pasta Pizza Plus for more than 30 years on U.S. 41 East. Giuseppe’s closed in 2010 when the Elks Lodge bought that East Trail property.

LoDuca, 44, still encounters people who fondly recall the original local restaurant operated by his father, who died in 2010.

“I want this open so we can keep his legacy on,” he said about Sicilia Mia, Italian for “My Sicily,” where his family originated. “So, we’re excited. This is what we do. We’ve been doing it so long. I’m hoping that’s going to be the edge.”

Giuseppe LoDuca’s daughter and son-in-law, Angela and Salvatore Scalici, also formerly operated Salvo’s Pizzeria where Seoul Korean Restaurant is today in Magnolia Square. Angela LoDuca Scalici now manages the legendary Little Bar restaurant in Goodland.

Born and raised in Naples, Vito LoDuca worked at the former Charlena’s Pizza in East Naples and has been in the restaurant equipment business for the last decade, assisting in the startup of many other local restaurants. He had been looking for an opportunity to open his own pizzeria and knew that Papa John’s franchisee Eric Leon wanted to sell his space on Pine Ridge Road. Now, they are just waiting for state licensing approval and new signage to be installed.

“All we did was transfer over,” LoDuca said. “We didn’t really even change the layout that much. Obviously, we added a few things because we are doing some pasta dinners like chicken parm and eggplant parm and things like that, so a little bit of difference in the equipment, but the layout is similar because they were doing pizzas. We’re making our own dough which is, obviously, different than Papa John’s.”

Baci

Baci Pizza is moving again in East Naples.

This time, the local Italian restaurant and pizzeria is moving from off Bayshore Drive to Airport-Pulling Road. Baci Trattoria & Pizza will be in the northern end unit of Courthouse Walk, a retail strip at 2650 Airport Road S. It’s the same center as the longtime original location of Larry’s Lunchbox Delicatessen across from the Collier County Government Center.

Expect Baci to continue operating for at least a few weeks at its current address, 2740 Bayshore Drive, along Weeks Avenue. Baci owner Francesco “Frankie” Garofalo hopes to open in his new digs in late November or early December.

“We’ll going to start moving stuff out very soon,” he said.

That includes the pizza ovens and all the kitchen equipment to convert former office space into a full-service restaurant. The new location is slightly smaller than the current Baci, but it will seat 40 guests, Garofalo said.

“I think it’s a good location. I think we’re going to do very well there,” he said.

It’s the second major move for the longtime pizzeria in East Naples. Both moves were precipitated by redevelopment projects.

The original Baci on the East Trail was pushed out two years ago after operating for a decade in a tiny corner of a building that has since been demolished for a possible car wash. Opening in a new spot in Gulf Gate South in November 2024, the restaurant must move again ahead of plans to create the 5th Avenue Car Club and its automated vehicle storage “sky gallery” on the corner of Bayshore Drive and Weeks Avenue.

Born in Italy, Garofalo relocated with his family to Brooklyn when he was 11. He operated Italian restaurants in New York City for years before relocating to the Naples area in 2014 to open Baci Pizza in East Naples.

Baci’s new iteration will have a similar menu of house-made Italian dishes. Expect the same pizza, pasta and wine, Garafolo said.

The Tim Aten Knows weekly column answers local questions from readers. Email Tim at Tim.Aten@NaplesPress.com.