Few family-owned restaurants in San Diego can claim they’ve been around since before man walked on the moon. The Venetian Restaurant in Point Loma is among them, opening four years prior, in 1965, when the kitchen served plates of spaghetti for 85 cents and baked up whole pizzas for $1.25.
Fifty years later, founder Vince Giacalone still drops in regularly to dine with his wife Carmella, usually after 5:30 p.m. Mass on Saturdays. Since retiring, he’s passed the torch to his sons Joey and Frank, who have ushered the restaurant into the 21st century with new dishes, a full redesign and brisk delivery service. The longstanding recipes for pizza dough and red sauces, however, haven’t changed.
“Those are my father’s, the untouchables,” says Joey, adding that dishes such as chicken cacciatore and veal Parmesan have also remained firmly planted on the menu for the past five decades.
The Venetian was originally located at 2910 Canon St. before moving in 1973 to its current location at 3663 Voltaire St., where it continued blossoming as a destination Italian restaurant. Through the years, both dining rooms have seen the likes of singers Frankie Laine and Barry White as well as famed author Joseph Wambaugh and players from the San Diego Chargers.
“More so,” says Joey, “we’ve witnessed so many families come in with their kids over the past decades, and now those children are calling us up saying they’d like to have their wedding rehearsal dinners at the restaurant.”
Vince, a first-generation American of Sicilian parents, served as an Army cook in the Korean War and first tried his hands at opening a bakery in San Diego.
“But he was miserable,” says Joey. “It wasn’t for him.”
The Venetian proved a much better fit, allowing him to develop dishes from his family background while continuing to cook them until Joey and Frank were old enough to work the kitchen and bring some of their own recipes into the mix.
Among the most recent additions to the menu are Mediterranean scallops bathed in butter, olive oil, basil, tomatoes and lemon juice. Topped with bread crumbs and Parmesan cheese, the scallops are sourced fresh from Pacific shellfish and appear in several other dishes.
Another top seller is the brothers’ version of shrimp puttanesca tossed with olives, garlic and chili flakes and served over linguini. Equally memorable is the chicken piccata constructed with a perfected glaze of lemon, butter and white wine that comes together in the pan upon order.
“Our red sauces are the only things we keep in steam tables,” says Joey, adding that the kitchen goes through up to 10 gallons on Friday nights.
The menu extends to numerous pasta dishes such as baked cannelloni and lasagna using housemade pasta, plus fettuccine Alfredo, farfalle with prosciutto and peas and traditional spaghetti with meat or marinara sauce. Basically, there isn’t a classic Italian dish that goes missing.
Two years ago, the brothers gutted the restaurant to give it a full interior makeover, which resulted in what Joey calls “a clean, Tuscan-style look,” with modern high-back booths and a redesigned patio. The intent was to maintain the look and feel of a heritage, neighborhood restaurant rather than turning it into something showy and overly modern.
The Venetian’s 50th birthday occurs officially in June.
“We have things up our sleeves for celebrating it,” adds Joey, hinting that commemorative T-shirts featuring his father’s profile might be made.
“We are very lucky,” Joey concluded, “that my father built a foundation that is un-crackable. It’s not an easy business, but at the end of a working shift, when you see people who have been enjoying our restaurant for years, it’s all worth it.”
The venetian is open for lunch Mondays through Fridays from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. and dinner every day from 4 to 9 p.m. For more, please visit venetian1965.com or call (619) 223-8197.