By Natalie Bazinet
Staff writer
LIMESTONE — A new restaurant will be opening on the Loring Commerce Centre the first week of January to provide all the hungry employees working on the former air base with a place to grab breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Aroostook Republican photo/Natalie Bazinet
Russetto’s hand-made pizzas are cooked in brick-ovens — husband/wife owners Angela Russo, above, and Chris Saretto wouldn’t cook pizzas any other way.
Owned by Angela Russo and Chris Saretto, Russetto’s will offer pizza, Italian food, hot subs and daily specials like pork roast or ribs. Russo’s favorite dish planned for the menu is a special — a Syrian-style meat pie where hamburger, green peppers, onions and tomato paste are wrapped in a dough ball and fried.
“Foodies” themselves, Russo says that she and her husband can’t stop eating them.
Open for three meals a day, of course, the menu takes on some changes for each course.
For instance, breakfast is served between 6 and 8 a.m., offering high quality menu items like fresh coffee, breakfast pizza, baked sweets and breads.
This is the first restaurant that Russo and Saretto have owned, but the two are looking forward to making new friends and filling that good-food void on base.
Russo is a substance abuse counselor at the Loring Job Corps Center, and one of the largest complaints she’s heard from fellow employees on the Commerce Centre is that there’s no place to grab lunch. The new business will be located in the space formerly occupied by JoJo’s and the Flightline Cafe at 170 Development Drive.
“Driving into Caribou is OK, but it’s hard to get back and fourth in time when it’s snowing,” she said.
Russo and Saretto used to live in Colorado, but came back to Russo’s home town to be closer to family, particularly her parents (who first met at the NCO Club on base, back in the day).
While this is Russo and Saretto’s first restaurant, they have ample experience making and preparing food in large amounts.
It also helps that they’re pretty passionate about food — a characteristic Russo chalks up to both of their Italian heritage.
“We love food,” she said, “We’ll be serving very tasty, good products, and we made sure to get the brick ovens for the pizza — I wouldn’t make pizza without those.”
For more information, call 328-4343 or e-mail to arusso1478@hotmail.com.
