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Colasante’s Ristorante in Westover to host 50th anniversary celebration Saturday

The walls of Colasante’s Ristorante and Pub in Westover tell a story.

Good food, a love of community, a tight-knit family and a lot of sweat equity — a half century’s worth to be precise.

The landmark restaurant has made it to the 50-year mark and is still thriving. And considering 80 to 100 pizzas a day are made and served by Colasante’s, that’s a lot of dough.

“We’ve kept going through the good and the bad times,” said Anthony Colasante, who runs the eatery, started in 1969 as Westover Pizza by his parents, Eustachio and Maria, who immigrated to the United States from Scanno, Italy.

Colasante’s prides itself on making all of its food, including its popular sauce, from scratch using the recipes brought over from Italy by Maria. Some of her pasta dishes — including Nonna’s Lasagna — are among the venue’s best sellers.

“No preservatives,” said Anthony, who owns the business along with his brother Nick and their wives, Cindy and Brenda.

The division of labor is simple and is a family affair. Anthony runs the business, while Cindy and Brenda pitch in where needed. Nick, an accountant, handles the finances. Eustachio, who turned 88 in January, occasionally comes in to cook. (Maria died in February 2017.)

The Colasantes said all their children have worked in the restaurant at various times. But Brenda and Nick’s daughter, Alli, 28, now works at West Virginia University, while their son, Nicolas, 25, is an industrial engineer at Mon Health. Anthony and Cindy’s son, Domenic, turns 16 later this month. He is a sophomore at Morgantown High School.

“He’ll work if he wants gas money,” Anthony joked.

Up until 1992, Colasante’s was known as Westover Pizza. That changed when the decision was made to expand the menu and add steaks and seafood options, get a liquor license and offer West Virginia Lottery products. Colasante’s also opened a pub on its second floor.

“We shut down for six weeks,” Anthony said. “The trend was moving more toward a restaurant-bar atmosphere. And we changed our name.”

Anthony said the decision was also made to keep the dining experience at Colasante’s “formally informal.” This way, he said, most everyone will feel welcome and not be inhibited by prices or attire.

Much of Colasante’s walls are covered in sports memorabilia, giving the 100-seat venue a casual feel. Anthony said when they decided to change from a pizza place to a full-scale restaurant, he found himself looking at a lot of drywall and decided to bring in some items from his own collection.

“The community chipped in and I also went to some flea markets,” he said.

The restaurant walls are full of WVU football jerseys, some Morgantown High sports jerseys, as well as uniform items from area professional sports teams. Other unique items on the walls include a Babe Ruth autographed photo, a base signed by Pete Rose and a pair of boxing trunks signed by boxing great Muhammed Ali.

It’s also not uncommon for former Pittsburgh sports stars to stop in the restaurant when they are in Morgantown. Among the athletes to visit recently were Bill Mazeroski, John Candelaria and golfer John Daly.

“Elroy Face was here last summer,” Anthony said. “He was looking at the picture of Hank Aaron’s 714th home run. He turned to me and said, ‘He hit 713 off of me.’ ”

Three years ago, tragedy struck the Colasante family in April 2016, when an electrical fire nearly destroyed the business.

“We burned from the top down,” Anthony said. “I never knew what devastation was like until then.”

The building, business records, invoices and receipts, equipment, furniture and Anthony’s carefully curated sports collectables were destroyed or nearly destroyed. The sports items he could save — roughly 60% — were taken to a company in Pennsylvania for restoration.

At first, the Colasante family was not sure they would rebuild the eatery.

“But, there was an outpouring of support from the community,” Anthony said.

“People would bring us coffee and doughnuts,” Cindy Colasante said.

Anthony said he was across the street one morning looking at where his business once stood when he spotted man and a woman sitting in their vehicle in the parking lot.

“I went over to the car and asked if I could help them” he said. “They were from Fairmont and were crying. They had had their first date here.”

It took a year to rebuild the restaurant, which re-opened Sept. 4, 2017. The only significant change was moving the pub from the second floor to the first floor, Anthony said.

Since rebuilding, business has been steady but the restaurant business is challenging — mostly because of rising food costs and the need to keep prices reasonable for the customer base.

“We are a mom-and-pop business,” Brenda said.

The Colasantes have no changes planned and joked they would like to continue for another 50 years.

“Time really does fly,” Anthony said.

As part of their 50th anniversary celebration, the restaurant is holding a Westover Pizza and Colasante’s Alumni Night on Saturday. Former staff members are welcome to stop by to reminisce about their days of working with the Colasante family. There will be specials, a cake-cutting and giveaways.

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