Rosebud reopens in Naperville
Naperville’s new Rosebud Italian Specialties and Pizzeria opened its doors for its first lunch rush in seven months Friday. And staff and customers agreed, it “just felt right.”
The new location at 22 E. Chicago St. replaces the previous location at 48 W. Chicago Ave., which was destroyed by an accidental fire in July.
While the fire was devastating, General Manager Jay DeMarco said opening new and starting fresh has been a blessing.
“Everything is brand new,” he said of the former Timpanos location. “(Co-owner George Dana) gutted the place and remodeled it to exactly what he wanted. So we’ve got all new furniture, all new kitchen equipment, a new bar, everything.”
Despite all the newness, DeMarco said every effort, including bringing back a majority of the servers from the former location, has been made to make patrons comfortable and familiar.
“We’ve got the same menu featuring the chicken Vesuvio and eggplant Parmesan and we’ve added something new,” DeMarco said. “We now have a great stone fire oven that we had sent over from Italy. So the thin crust pizzas have changed a little, but that’s it.”
Diners Nick and Rayanne Saso said they’ve been waiting for the doors to open since late in the fall when they saw the new sign go up on the southeast corner of Washington and Chicago.
“We’re happy they decided to stay downtown,” Rayanne said between bites of her eggplant salad Friday. “We’ve missed it.”
DeMarco said that’s similar of remarks he’s heard so far.
“We’ve had a good response and gotten a lot of ‘Thank God you’re back’ comments,” he said. “It really has been an overwhelming response to both the food and service.”
The Naperville Area Chamber of Commerce is also happy to have Rosebud back as a member.
“They have been a good resident of downtown Naperville for a long time,” chamber President John Schmitt said. “They will provide additional vitality to that corner of Washington and Chicago for a long time to come.”
Rosebud is now open from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. every day.