Dallas has a new restaurant opening just about every week. Some concepts last only months while many other stick around longer. However, few have the staying power of nearly six decades run by one couple married more than 50 years.
Step inside Pietro's Italian Restaurant on Richmond in the Lower Greenville neighborhood and the present feels a whole lot like the past - and tastes even better.
The Italian dishes all start with owner Pietro "Pete" Eustachio and his bride Grace.
The pair left Sicily in the late 1950's, but brought their recipes with them. When New York City did not feel right, a visit to Pietro's sister in Dallas in 1960 did.
"We fell in love with Texas," Eustachio said.
That love affair started in the late 2800 block of Greenville where The Grape is currently located. That's where longtime customers Eddie and Becky Newton of Richardson, noticed a line wrapping outside the door in 1969.
“We were complaining 'I hope this place is perfect' and worth waiting 45 minutes. Well, 48 years later, it was worth it,” Eddie Newton.
Five nights a week – it’s Pietro and Grace and cousin and master chef Santo Spatoro turning out the all the dishes - pastas, sauces and homemade breads.
It’s mixed with history too - from glowing write ups in the long since defunct Dallas Times Herald to photos of Pietro and Grace with their baby daughter Rose.
Rose Laferty remembers eating dinner there and then going back upstairs to play in the home above the restaurant she grew up in.
She has two kids of her own now and still helps out her parents when she can – which lately – has been more often.
“My sister Claudia and I put our foot down and said ‘mom and dad it’s time for y’all to enjoy life – and to be with us longer,” Laferty said.
The Eustachio's are approaching their eighties and have decided - they've had a pretty good run.
So, on this final week, the dining room is filling up with familiar faces of longtime customers again.
“Sometimes I feel like crying because I got to leave this place – but I can’t work forever,” Pietro Eustachio said.
The couple owns the building which sits in a prime development spot in the rapidly evolving Lower Greenville area.
Eustachio says he has no plans to sell right now, but will look for a tenant that perhaps can open a new business there.