Originally published December 2021. Learn more about Faces of Bowness here.
“I’m a lifelong resident, and I have always worked only in Bowness. I started at Gondola Pizza when I was out of high school at 15; so that’s 41 years now. After Gondola, I went to Bona Roma’s Pizza, Rocko’s Pizza, when I was 16 I told my friends that I would buy this place, and it took me 30 years, but I did.
People in Bowness are great. I love the location. It doesn’t matter how big the city grows. We’re in our little village in the valley, separated by the river and hills. We’ve been busy here. We have the best customers; they’ve kept us busy through COVID. I’ve kept it [the look of the restaurant] the same all these years.
I came to work here in 1996, so 25 years now, and my partner around the same time. He owned his own restaurant at the time, and then a cook position became available here and he thought that he would come join us. We serve pizza, pasta, steak, ribs, salad etc. The menu has stayed the same, I’ve even asked the customers if they want to change it, and they told me not to change anything. We use the best stuff, so our food cost is through the roof.
I’m chair of the Mainstreet Bowness BIA, I’m on the board of directors at the Bowness Community Association, I was on the planning committee for chair and vice chair for about 9 years. I sold Christmas trees at the scout hall on the -32 days when nobody else wanted to.
I’m the ‘Karaoke King’, I’ve been doing karaoke since the 80s when it really wasn’t even around, I would just invite bands on my stage and sing. I go to all the Bowness bars that have karaoke, I have probably at least 150 songs that I can run through, generally one of the better singers there I think. I have my own karaoke machine at home too so that’s always fun.”
