Pellegrini’s brings southern Italian fare home to Greeley

GREELEY — Both in its previous and current incarnations, a pioneering spirit has propelled a restaurant space in the Cottonwood Square shopping center in Greeley.

For 25 years, the spot at 2400 17th St. was home to Potato Brumbaugh’s, whose menu reflected the Western ranching culture and whose name was taken from a character in James Michener’s 1974 novel “Centennial.” According to the Colorado State Publications Library, the Brumbaugh character may have been inspired by Rufus “Potato” Clark, a prospector-turned-potato farmer who developed irrigation techniques south of Denver and who transported his produce to the city by carving out a road that became known as South Broadway.

Opened in 1981 by partners Rob Haimson, John Todd, Vic Nottingham and Charlie Rymes, Potato Brumbaugh’s was a Northern Colorado staple until it was sold and closed in 2006.

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Today, the restaurant touts a far different flavor — with a different type of pioneer at its helm. At Pellegrini Ristorante Italiano and Bar, Carlo Pellegrini seeks to introduce Northern Colorado to traditional fare from his native Puglia region of Italy, along the southern Adriatic Sea coast on what he described as “the heel of the boot.”

Where else in the area but at Pellegrini’s would you find orecchiette, the homemade pasta whose name translates to “small ear” and describes its shape? Or braciola, slices of sirloin slow-cooked in wine sauce? Or salsiccia, pork sausage sautéed in white wine with tomato, red and yellow bell peppers and capers? Or involtini di melanzana, an appetizer of mozzarella and basil leaves rolled into lightly fried eggplant and served with house tomato-basil marinara?

Puglia is known for its fruits and vegetables, but also for dishes rich in seafood such as “cozze” (mussels) and pesce spade (swordfish). They’re on Pelligrini’s menu as well.

Pellegrini admitted that a few concessions – only a few – have been made for American tastes. “Here we have to have more sauce – red sauce, white sauce – and make the portions bigger,” he said.

He grew up in the town of Bisceglie, where his mother was a renowned cook, one uncle was a “panettiere” (breadmaker) and another produced olive oil, and his aunt owned a restaurant that Carlo Pellegrini managed.

“My background in accounting helps me a lot,” he said. “I probably understand profit and loss more than I do the recipes. You have to be creative with the plates, but with numbers there’s no creativity. I had to train people to understand my menu, but now we have a manager who can pretty much take care of training them. I’m still training them in pronunciation, though.

“I started to create my wine list, but now we have others to organize that too – another Italian guy.”

Pellegrini’s opened in the summer of 2012. “We changed all the cosmetic parts — the walls, roof, floor, lights, all the booths,” Pellegrini said. He and his wife, native Coloradan Jessica Morse, added photos they took in Puglia, an old wine press and other items they bring back from annual trips to Italy.

The restaurant boasts half-priced pizzas on Mondays, and $5 martinis and half-price lasagna on Tuesdays. Special menu items on New Year’s Eve included “antipasti de frittura mista,” lightly battered and fried calamari, shrimp, baby scallops and zucchini, and slow-cooked wild boar served over hand-cut pappardelle pasta.

Pellegrini and Morse also own O Sole Mio Trattoria Italiana, a 2,500-square-foot Italian restaurant in Fort Morgan. The couple met in Milan, Italy, moved to Greeley in 2008 and commuted to Fort Morgan to run O Sole Mio, then acquired the vacant 5,000-square-foot space in Greeley that had been Potato Brumbaugh’s.

O Sole Mio, open since 2004, can seat about 60, Pellegrini said, while their Greeley restaurant can hold up to 200. Pellegrini concentrates more on the Greeley location, while Morse continues to travel to Fort Morgan – even though Pellegrini’s is just as much hers.

“We’re a husband-and-wife team,” Morse said. “That restaurant is our life.”

Dallas Heltzell can be reached at 970-232-3149, 303-630-1962 or dheltzell@bizwestmedia.com. Follow him on Twitter at @DallasHeltzell.