By Andrea Lannom
Register-Herald Reporter
—
Named for a beloved family member, Ninuccio’s Ristorante serves as a testament to a love for family and Italian cooking.
The Oak Hill business, located on Main Street, serves everything from sandwiches and subs to Italian dishes which are from recipes passed down for generations.
Just a month ago, the restaurant was the last thing on the mind of owner Paula Taylor.
“We already had Giuseppe’s (Italian restaurant in Mount Hope) for quite a while and we had no intention of starting another business,” she said. “Jim Lively had told us about the amphitheater going in and how there were no places in town for people to go to for a sit-down restaurant. I had told him that we would do it if he could find the building.”
Taylor then received a call that a building had been found and the restaurant had its official opening Thursday. Taylor stresses Giuseppe’s will not be shut down and Ninuccio’s will be a bit different.
“We are going to have a few different things from the other place, like having customer cards, live entertainment and a few different menu items,” she said.
Even before the official opening, their phone was ringing off the hook.
“We had a lot of people calling us asking us when we were going to open,” she said. “We also booked the entire month of December for Christmas parties before we opened.”
A tough business decision had to be made, however, when Taylor confronted the idea of risking family time on Sunday or staying open to accommodate business.
“It was a tough decision for us to not be open on Sunday because we did realize how much business we would have on that day because of all of the churches around us,” she said. “We have a tradition, however, where a lot of members of our family get together on Sunday. Family is just too important, though. We couldn’t break that tradition.”
Family has become such an emphasis that even customers become part of the family when they enter the doors, Taylor said.
“When you come to our restaurant, you become part of our family,” she said. “We have some very loyal customers and some who don’t have families of their own. We will take some of them in and have birthday parties, invite them over for holidays and things like that. All that I tell my waiters and waitresses is that I want them to treat people like they are family.”
Being in the restaurant business has been all the family has known since graduating from high school, Taylor said. Growing up, Taylor remembers times when all the kids would pile in the kitchen to help their mom cook.
She said her father, Ninuccio Veramessa, had always told her when she was younger that one day, all of them would own a restaurant.
“His main concern was for all of us to have jobs,” she said. “It was my dad’s desire to see his kids have a business and to make a name for ourselves. We also grew up in the kitchen. When my mom was cooking, my dad always wanted us to go in and help our mother cook.”
Veramessa came to the United States from Italy when he was 21 and never returned home, even though he wanted to, Taylor said. Upon landing, he got a job in New York and then finally ended up in West Virginia. He was a stone mason for quite a while and had many carvings up in Columbus where he met Taylor’s mother, Taylor said.
“At that time, he didn’t know a word of English, but my mother taught him,” she said. “Then after he had us, we taught him more English.”
One can see just by entering the restaurant just how much of an impression Veramessa left on his family. A portrait hangs in the back of the restaurant beside a book Veramessa brought from Italy. Along the side of the restaurant is a cooking tool Veramessa used to make Christmas cookies.
But it’s not just the restaurant that carries Veramessa’s memory.
Back in 1995, tragedy struck when Veramessa passed away, leaving his family shocked and saddened. Taylor says he left behind an impression even for those who had not met him.
“Dad was the first one in our family to really pass away and it was so hard,” she said. “It’s still hard for all of us. To put it this way, there was only three of the 12 grandchildren who knew him, but all of them mourn him. They wear little necklaces with his picture in it.”
Taylor says it was hard to persevere, but there was still a desire to make her parents happy, even if one wasn’t physically there anymore. Having this business is a way for her family to connect with Veramessa and to carry out what he always wanted.
This is why in the back of the restaurant is a another photo, this one of both her parents, along with the Italian phrase, “Tutto a causa di lei,” which translates to “All because of you.”
“It is all because of them that we can do what we’re doing,” Taylor said. “We can’t have him here, but I believe he’s here in spirit. I just hope that he looks down and sees his family fulfilling his dream.”
— E-mail: alannom@register-herald.com
