Like many people, I was shocked when I woke up today and saw this on the Range. Guiseppe’s Ristorante Italiano has been hugely successful since opening earlier this year, and was even a staff pick for Best New Restaurant by an Old Favorite in this year’s Best of Tucson® awards.
So I called the restaurant this morning and it appears reports that the restaurant has been sold are incorrect. What has happened is that Joe Scordato, who was working insane hours in the kitchen, handed management of the day-to-day operations over to Israel Velderrain, who has known and worked with the Scordato family for more than 12 years.
“He (Joe Scordato) was working a lot and needed some time off, and I came in to help him,” Velderrain said this morning, adding that he also used to manage Trattoria Guiseppe for Scordato. “The menu is the same, all the food is the same, nothing has changed.”
Israel Velderrain and his brother, Joshua Velderrain, are now partners in the restaurant with Scordato. The recipes are all still Scordato’s, and he’s still playing a major role. So when the sign outside says “by Joe Scordato,” that is correct. He may not personally cook your food, but his decades of experience and deep knowledge of Italian cooking are still behind every plate.
Israel Velderrain – who was also the chef at Zona 78 for a spell – also said guests can expect the addition of new entrées, appetizers and desserts after he gets a few things ironed out at the eatery.
This article appears in Nov 4-10, 2010.
Well, this story gets better and better. I am the person who contacted Rita in the first place. Their signature dish was Braciole. I took my girlfriend there on the 3rd for her birthday, and I don’t care what ANYONE tells you ( “The menu is the same, all the food is the same, nothing has changed.”) Braciole was NOT on that menu. I asked the bartender why it wasn’t and he said “The NEW owners took it off the menu.” My girlfriend said ” Doesn’t Scordato own the restaurant anymore?…”NO” was his reply. We paid for our drinks and left. I have a take home paper menu I picked up in Sept that has Braciole on the menu. The Guiseppesaz.com menu also has it.
I personally know the owners of the shopping mall and called them and they told me Joe had major surgery and will be out indefinitely. NOTHING about being overworked and needing some time off. They did say his partners were taking over.
Why did you line out Rita’s blog about how how she called the restaurant and they told her “Yes” it was sold 2 weeks ago?? Why would she lie about it? It’s the same info I was told by the bartender.( Maybe when she called, she got the same bartender on the phone.)
Somebody is covering up something. Like I told Rita, I work for the US Postal Service,and if you really want to know what is going on with the Post Office, ask a Letter Carrier (bartender), don’t ask the Postal Supervisiors (new owners). Either way, I don’t really care. I have no intention of going back to Guiseppes, no matter who owns it. I went for the Braciole…Scordato’s signature dish (so did Rita, back in July). It must have cost some bucks to have new menus printed up, taking Braciole OFF the menu. The new menu also did not include any desserts, which are on my take home menu and also on the website. Maybe there is a separate dessert menu at the restaurant, although with only 4 dessert items to try out, it hardly seems worth the trouble to make up another menu for 4 items, so I don’t know if they’ve dropped the dessert items or not. There seems to be more than meets the eye here, especially since you voided out Ritas blog so quickly. This is running quite long, so I will be curious to read a reply from you. Marty M
PS my email is mmmyv@q.com
Once again…the truth shall set you free! I am so G.D. tired of all of these owners and substitute owners lying about the truth of the deal, just to con folks into one more visit. I refuse to patronize ANY restaurant where the ownership OR the executive chef position is clouded, in doubt or otherwise vague. As I will continue to repeat; We are in a DEPRESSION, folks! Get honest or get out of town. I don’t need to be lied to by anyone, let alone the man who is preparing my evening meal. I have had it. Call me cynical, call me bitter. I’ll wear the label with pride, because I KNOW what is going down with all of these various restaurant con jobs. Tale it or leave it, no replies will be posted to any criticism of mine. Not now. Not ever. Buh-Byeeee…
I ate there at the earlier this week. The food is great and the price is better. The only difference I saw was that it was more packed than it was in March.