Two new eateries for Third Street

Spaghetti and meatballs won't be hard to find in Geneva.

If you keep a scorecard on such matters, Third Street soon will debut two Italian restaurants -- Grotto Italian Tapas and Chianti. This will make up for the recent losses of Ristorante Chianti and Tuscany Incredibly Italian.

Grotto will be operated by the Sisto family, which owns ZaZa Trattoria in St. Charles, while Chianti will be owned by Jeff and Stacey Woods, two former employees of Ristorante Chianti.

This is where it gets only slightly confusing. Grotto will open in the site of the former Ristorante Chianti, while the new Chianti will open in the building at the corner of Third and Campbell streets that once housed retail.

Is this an overload of Italian food, or the signal that Third Street storefronts are filling up again?

"The really cool thing about this is that the entire block will be filled again," said Ellen Divita, Geneva's economic development director, citing some new retail on the second floors of both restaurant buildings.

Meal-packing party: It's hard to believe a bag of fortified rice, soy and dried vegetables weighing 40 grams can feed six kids who might otherwise starve to death in poor nations.

With that in mind, it was rewarding to join nearly 100 volunteers who gathered at Hosanna! Lutheran Church in St. Charles last week to pack meals as part of the Feed My Starving Children organization.

During my shift, volunteers filled 98 boxes, each with 36 food packets. If my math is close, more than 21,000 kids will have a meal because of that effort. The good news is that volunteers were putting together food packets and packing boxes all weekend, with a goal to send 150,000 meals.

I learned about this project from members of my service club, but anyone can learn a lot more by visiting the Web site at fmsc.org or giving Hosanna! Lutheran Church a call for more information.

Those fun battles: The winners of some "battles" that Geneva parents don't mind seeing their kids being part of will showcase their talents Monday night.

In what really amounts to a jump-start for next week's Swedish Days festival in downtown Geneva, middle school and high school students will fill the streets for a dance that will feature the first- and second-place winners from the park district's Battle of the Bands competition, to be held Saturday at Island Park.

The party starts at 7 p.m. and goes until 9 p.m. in front of the old Kane County Courthouse. So that's a two-hour warm-up in a location that will see lots of action next week.

When I say the parents don't mind seeing kids in these "battles," I mean literally. Sorry, kids, but these events are chaperoned. But don't think that will make the parties any less memorable. Believe it or not, the old fellow who writes this column played drums in a rock band when he was in middle school and high school, and he still remembers the fun of the "Battle of the Bands" dance nights as if they had happened last week.