Tag: Ronnie Grisanti

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Food & Drink Hungry Memphis

Alex Grisanti Slated to Open Fine Dining Side of Elfo’s in Southaven Mid-December

CREDIT: Francesca Grisanti


Francesca Grisanti

Alex Grisanti at his new Elfo Grisanti’s Northern Italian Cuisine

The fine dining room of Elfo Grisanti’s Northern Italian Cuisine — Alex Grisanti’s new restaurant in Southaven — is slated to open in mid December.

“I’m ready, baby,” Grisanti says.

One side of the restaurant — “Elfo’s Pizzeria”— already is open and features the same type of Northern Italian-style pizza Grisanti serves at his 9 Dough 1 pizza truck.

“The pizza side is open and the food truck is running,” Grisanti says. “The pizza side has been running for a week consistently. I’m done with that now. I’m moving on to the dining room side.”

His new Elfo’s will be reminiscent of the Elfo’s restaurant he owned for years in Germantown, Grisanti says.

Describing the dining room, he says, “It’s comfy, cozy. It’s beautiful like my other Elfo’s. It’s got gold metallic walls with white tablecloths.”

Francesca Grisanti

Elfo Grisanti’s Northern Italian Cuisine

The walls also “are covered with black-and-white family photos like my old Elfo’s.”

The bar, he says, has a white marble checkered pattern on it.

The restaurant is “going to be very quaint. It’s only going to seat about 50 and the bar, 15.”

His new Elfo’s also reminds him of the original Ronnie Grisanti’s restaurant, owned by his dad, the late Ronnie Grisanti. “This place reminds me of  Union and Marshall with the Ronnie Grisanti’s atmosphere. It’s going to have pictures hung in the bathrooms, family trees going down the walls. It’s going to be beautiful when it’s done. And we’re getting done.”

As for the bar, he says, “We’re going to have that Elfo’s and Ronnie Grisanti vibe at the bar going on. The bar is separated by a wall.”

Customers will be in the bar “whooping it up” while diners on the other side are eating.

Francesca Grisanti

Elfo’s Pizzaria at Elfo Grisanti’s Northern Italian Cuisine

For the food, Grisanti says, “This place is going to have the Union and Marshall menu, but with nightly specials.”

Fare will include dishes Elfo’s and the Grisanti family are famous for. “Lasagna, homemade ravioli, spinach, garlic bread.”

This will included his chicken raviolis and his “homemade Bolognese sauce with tagliatelle  thick pasta.”

And, he says, “My pasta special and beef special of the day every day.”

The restaurant was named after Grisanti’s grandfather, the late restaurateur Elfo Grisanti. “The guy who really started everything. He’s the one who started the cooking and making us what we are.”

Alex Grisanti is ready for diners to experience that Grisanti vibe in Southaven. “Glasses tinkling, people giggling, a little Frank Sinatra in the background, nobody with frowns on their faces, everybody positive, loving to be here. Loving them to be here. I want these people to be embraced by the whole Grisanti atmosphere.”

Elfo Grisanti’s Northern Italian Cuisine is at 5627 Getwell Road; (662) 470-4497

Francesca Grisanti

Alex Griisanti at Elfo’s Pizzeria at Elfo Grisanti’s Northern Italian Cuisine

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Food & Drink Hungry Memphis

Alex Grisanti to Open Elfo Grisanti’s Northern Italian Cuisine in Southaven



Alex Grisanti is slated to open a new restaurant, Elfo Grisanti’s Northern Italian Cuisine, during the second week of September in Southaven.

It’s a first for the Grisanti restaurants, says Grisanti, the chef/owner of the new restaurant. “The first time we’ve been in Mississippi.”

Alex Grisanti

The restaurant at 5627 Getwell Road was named after his grandfather as well as Grisanti’s 25-year-old son, Elfo.

The restaurant will have two sides. Grisante describes the side that will open first as a “plain, simple pizzeria” featuring a brick pizza oven as well as bistro tables on an outdoor patio.

The fine-dining side will have white tablecloths and large black-and-white photographs of family members, including his father, the late Ronnie Grisanti. The look will be reminiscent of Alex Grisanti’s former Elfo’s Restaurant in Germantown. “The dining room is going to be cozy, casual,” Grisanti says, and will include “three little private dining rooms.” 

As for the food, Grisanti says, “We are doing what my dad did in 1979 at Union and Marshall. I am going to serve true Grisanti Italian comfort food.” Which also is what his grandfather and great-grandfather Pietro “Mr. Willy” Grisanti and his wife, Mary, served at their Memphis restaurants, he says. 

“My grandfather Elfo told my dad,’If you cook my Elfo Special, my spinach, and my manicotti, you can make a living for yourself for the rest of your life.’ That’s what my dad did and what I did.

“I’m cooking like the Grisantis have cooked since 1909: Cold, chilled salad bowls. My dad was always big on salad bowls, and his had to be cold. The lettuce had to be cold with Miss Mary’s dressing on it. I am going to give Memphis and Southaven what we did at Union and Marshall and on Poplar.

“On weekends I’m going to run fish specials, beef specials, but I’m also going to have our original manicotti, the spinach, Elfo Special, the lasagna.”

Customers also will find chicken cacciatore, eggplant parmigiana, and other traditional Grisanti favorites, Grisanti says, and the “big hand-toasted ravioli.”

“I’m going back to the basics. The big loaves of garlic French bread with butter and parmesan cheese. Just all the old-school comfort food. Family friendly price points where you can bring the family in. I want to be just the old simple, Italian restaurant that my family started out with. That’s what we did.”

In addition to his son Elfo, the restaurant will involve his entire family, including his wife, Kim, and their other children, Francesca, Alexis, and Luccabella.

He’s excited to open the new restaurant. “Southaven has been nothing but warm and welcoming. We’re as happy as we can be.”

Grisanti will continue to operate his food truck, “9 Dough 1.”

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Food & Drink Hungry Memphis

Alex Grisanti Now in the Kitchen at Ronnie Grisanti’s Restaurant

Alex Grisanti now in the kitchen at Ronnie Grisanti’s Restaurant



Ronnie Grisanti’s Restaurant at one time was known as Ronnie Grisanti & Son Restaurant.

It’s a “sons” thing again. Alex Grisanti recently joined his brother, Judd Grisanti, in the kitchen at Ronnie Grisanti’s Restaurant in Regalia. Their brother, Dino Grisanti, is one of the owners.

Alex, who will continue to operate his 9-Dough-1 food truck, is glad to be back.

“My dad’s name is on the building,” Alex says. “I want to keep that Grisanti quality going that Memphis is used to, and give our customers what they expect out of us Grisantis.”

Judd, who opened Ronnie Grisanti’s Restaurant, in September, 2018, says, “The restaurant was never mine. The restaurant was never about me. The restaurant was never about Alex. It’s about our heritage. It’s about our family. We’re brothers. And it’s great to be back in the kitchen again, cooking alongside each other like we did for 27 years.”

The Grisanti brothers cooked at the Ronnie Grisanti’s restaurant when it was at 2855 Poplar at Humes. Dino, who also is in the car dealership business, worked in the kitchen at one time. Alex was chef/owner of the old Elfo’s restaurant in Germantown.

Judd and Dino asked him to come back, Alex says. He says he told them, “When I wasn’t on my truck, when my truck’s not working during the holiday season when we’re not so busy, that I would come help him and make all the pastries and stuff like that.”

“That’s what kind of got me back there,” says Alex, who now will be doing all types of chef duties in the kitchen.

And, he says, “When Judd’s not there, at least there’s a Grisanti in the building. Like me and dad, Judd, down on Poplar. Just like the old days.”

His food truck – or bus – business is doing “phenomenal,” he says. People still are going crazy over his crawfish pizza and other pizzas.

“This is coming up on our third year with the food truck. I worked nine shifts in the food truck last week. Our business has tripled. Because we’re feeding hospitals and their nurses and big companies where people have to go to work. Like right now, we’re at Campbell Clinic feeding all the doctors and nurses here.”

And, he says, “We built a new truck this winter and it’s doing great.”

It’s actually a “cargo, transport bus,” he says. “I got a bus five or six months ago and it took me all winter to build it. But it’s out and done.”

Judd and Dino aren’t the only ones happy to have their brother in the kitchen again. “I think my dad and my mom would be happy about us being in the kitchen again,” Judd says. “I know he’s smiling.”

Ronnie Grisanti’s Restaurant is at 6150 Poplar Avenue, No. 122, in Regalia; (901) 850-0191

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Letter From The Editor Opinion

Little Big Town

I was wandering through the Midtown Kroger on a recent Saturday night. Sounds like the beginning of a really bad novel, right? Or maybe I just have a lousy social life? Neither, actually. We were having friends over the next day and I needed a couple of things, and decided I’d rather go at night than battle the Sunday post-church crowd.

So, there I was, pondering whether or not I needed another package of bacon, when I saw former Mayor A C Wharton, also shopping alone. He was wearing a sharp, pin-striped seersucker suit. Crisp white shirt. No tie. I felt a bit under-dressed.

“Hello, Mr. Mayor,” I said.

“Why, hello,” he responded. “How are you?”

“Pretty good, sir.”

“You have plenty to write about these days, don’t you?”

“I sure do.”

The former mayor went on to mention that he really liked a column I wrote about President Trump’s cabinet meeting — the one where everyone in the room toadied up to Trump with fulsome praise.

“I now require my staff to praise me at the beginning of each meeting,” Wharton said, grinning.

“Good plan,” I said. “I do the same. Keeps them on their toes.”

And on we went about our shopping. It was such a Memphis moment. At that same Kroger I’ve seen tons of Grizzlies players, notable musicians of every stripe (from Stax legends to opera singers to current stars), leaders in the arts and education and theater, congressmen, chefs, hotshot lawyers — you name it. Everybody in Memphis goes Krogering, it seems. It’s the great equalizer.

Ronnie Grisanti’s restaurant at Poplar and Humes was also that kind of place. You’d see Wharton, Harold Ford, Steve Cohen, Willie Herenton, Jerry West, and every Grizzlies coach who ever coached, including the three Italians in a row we once had (Fratelli, Barone, and Iavaroni), each of whom I saw hanging at Ronnie’s bar on many occasions.

It was the center of the Memphis dining universe from the mid-’90s to the mid-aughts, and it was often my habit to go on Tuesdays after we put the Flyer to bed. I never had a boring evening or a bad meal.

And Ronnie was at the center of it all, greeting everyone by name, shuffling you to the bar with a bit of gossip in your ear while you waited for your table. No reservations at Ronnie’s. You showed up and took your chances. And if you were a regular, at some point Ronnie would take your picture and put it on the wall somewhere. Mine was on the men’s room door, but hey, it was there, a badge of honor, a sign I’d made it. Or something.

Ronnie died last weekend, at 79, marking the end of an era. He’d moved his restaurant out to Collierville in recent years, out of my dining comfort zone, but I’m sure it was a nice place, because he was a nice man — larger than life — and he’ll be missed by all who knew him.

I spend my Tuesday nights at another joint now, a cozy, friendly place at Cooper and Peabody, near my house. I call the owners and bartenders my friends. I can’t go there without seeing 10 people I know. And that’s the way I like it, a home away from home. A place where everybody knows your name.

In these tempestuous times, where change comes at the drop of a tweet, it’s good to have traditions and to savor them, like you savor your food and your friends and your family.

And your memories.

Bruce VanWyngarden
brucev@memphisflyer.com