Each week, on Monday, we do a Member Feature where we shine a spotlight on one of our Chamber Members. This week, that spotlight is shining on Nonni’s Corner Trattoria. This is both a celebration of 10 wonderful years, and a heartfelt farewell as they close this chapter and begin a new one with retirement.
Please provide a short description of your business and what you do.
Nonni’s Corner Trattoria is a family owned and operated Italian restaurant serving delicious, southern Italian cuisine using our family’s own recipes and style passed down from many generations. Established in 2010, we are pleased to be a part of the downtown community of businesses in Grove City, Pa.
What’s the story behind your business?
Nonni, Helena Valenza, is the family matriarch. She’s also the chef and namesake of the business. She personally makes the staples of the restaurant menu like our marinara and clam sauces, meatballs, soups, and chicken and eggplant parmesan. She learned to cook from her grandmother who came from Sicily along with her parents. Her parents opened their own Italian restaurant in Clearfield, Pa., that ran for 47 years. Nonni and her family learned the business growing up in that restaurant.
Nonni’s daughter, Camille Valenza-Hazelton, and son, David Valenza, serve as sous chef and General Manager, respectively. Camille is responsible for so many additional customer favorites including her famous Vodka sauce and Tiramisu. David makes their wide variety of pasta and acts as their roundsman. Andrew Hazelton, is our kitchen manager, chief prep cook and Nonni’s right-hand man.
But her family has a deep well of talent to draw from. Susann Valenza assists with bookkeeping, advertising and filling staffing gaps. Nonni’s grandchildren, Nicholas Hazelton, Anthony Valenza, Christian Hazelton, and Angelina have each been Dishwashers, kitchen staff and servers.
As importantly, Nonni has been fortunate to have a compliment of diligent, dedicated, and fun employees who have extended her family. Without these wonderful people and their work ethic working shoulder to shoulder with Nonni and her family, we would not be the successful restaurant we are.
What is a best / top selling / favorite item you serve?
It’s never simple for us to explain the best or favorite item we serve. Each has it’s own family back story and reason for being on the menu. With that said, we suggest the following scenario as one that sums up a great experience our customers can expect and touches on many of our favorite and most raved about items.
Your experience starts with the warm and friendly support of our wonderful servers in our beautiful dining room. After you’ve ordered, you’re served Mancini’s bread with extra virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar for dipping. Then, an appetizer of our Torched Banana Peppers that are seared until they’re tender and mixed with roasted red peppers, herbs and grated cheese. Sure they’re spicy but you’ve stepped it up by adding our hot sausage. Now you have a chance to sooth your tastebuds with our spring mix salad and our flavorful Italian dressing.
It’s time for the main course: our Chicken Parmesan made with tender breast meat, breaded and covered in Nonni’s marinara sauce and melted cheese served with house-made Radiatori pasta and Vodka sauce. Best of all worlds there. But you’re not walking away yet. You and your guests now make the wise decision to top off your meal with our delectable Tiramisu and a cup of rich espresso.
Good night, nurse, you’ve really had a great experience!
When is your busiest time / season?
Our in house dining business is most packed in the Spring and Fall through Christmas. In addition to our local neighbors, we’ve been a go-to location for the area college families to celebrate graduations and family visits with students. That’s also when we draw a huge following of visitors from the Grove City Outlets from around the country and Canada. Rehearsal dinners and weddings are big during these periods, too. Our business and private catering and wholesale business is another big part of our portfolio. Lots of Grove City’s businesses depend on us for business lunches and celebrations.
What is something people would be surprised to know about your business?
In the last several years, we have built a strong wholesale business supporting local colleges and businesses with our house-made pastas. We have made a significant investment in equipment and experience to build an extensive catalogue of shapes, flavors, and ingredients. We can make our entire pasta line with organic semolina which fills a growing demand. We now boast more than two dozen pasta shapes from the hearty Rigatoni and Rotelle to the delicate Capellini and Cavatelli. We are creative with the use of fresh herbs and vegetables that can be added to any of our shapes. This provides for many hundreds of shape, flavor and ingredient combinations.
Can you tell us about a memorable or favorite customer experience?
It’s amazing how many wonderful memories we’ve accumulated with local residents, visitors and their many celebrations. Every time a customer shares their heart felt happiness with us is memorable.
Guests are sometimes deeply moved because one of our recipes reminds them of a parent, friend or family member who used to cook the same way for them. Others are moved because we were able to help make their wedding, anniversary or graduation a fantastic experience. Many of these are once-in-a-lifetime celebrations and we cherish having been chosen to be a part of them.
What’s in store for you business going forward?
We at Nonni’s Corner Trattoria have been extremely fortunate with having 10 terrific years serving downtown Grove City and it’s visitors! We’re ever grateful for the wide and loyal patronage that we’ve never taken for granted.
This is a venture that we chose to pursue in our respective retirements. Unfortunately, the clock only moves in one direction.
We began considering when to wrap up our work at the restaurant last year and decided that ten years of service was the right point for us. We announced earlier this month that we are retiring with the restaurant’s last day being Saturday, May 23, 2020. Our children are all moving on and we’re looking forward to the flexibility of spending time with them and their future families.
The Covid-19 pandemic put a strange and unusual twist on our plans. Certainly, we would have preferred that we wind down the restaurant while serving meals as we always have in our dining room and in person. But that wasn’t an option that fit into our retirement timing.
What does the future hold for you?
Our immediate focus will be the details of closing our much loved facility including taking care of our employees to help them financially and in finding other suitable employment. They are a hard working bunch whom we are very proud of. They have a wide variety of talents and interests suitable for work outside of the hospitality industry.
We won’t be selling our restaurant name or recipes. We will be selling a lot of equipment inventory and our liquor license to a suitable buyer.
We have received an indescribable amount of support and well wishes from so many people. We will be spending time reflecting on that gift for years.
Beyond that, each of us have many family, personal, and business related options, projects and tasks that we’re looking forward to considering and pursuing.
What else would you like to share?
We want to recognize the support of the Grove City Chamber of Commerce and Olde Town Grove City who continue to work hard year in and year out for their respective clients. We have on-going gratitude for the patronage of our fellow businesses, residents and visitors for allowing us to serve them over the last decade. We wish you, all, much success and happiness from Nonni and her entire family and staff!
Comments are closed