Danny Gabriele insisted that he did not want to be on camera, noting that he was dressed for a construction site and not a polished presentation designed for photographic posterity.
“I look horrible,” he laughed.
Perhaps Gabriele was a tad harsh on his appearance, but he had a point ”“ work on his new Westport restaurant Gabriele”™s Italian Steakhouse was still underway and he apologized for being late in sitting down with the Business Journal, citing that he was needed to address ongoing plumbing issues.
Gabriele is no stranger to the restaurant trade. An earlier Greenwich version of the family-owned Gabriele”™s Italian Steakhouse attracted high-profile visitors from as far afield as Manhattan and Hartford prior to its December 2019 closing after nearly four decades in business.
“We used to draw all the celebrities, all the ballplayers,” recalled Gabriele. “We did two movies there with Robert DeNiro and Michael Douglas. Judge Judy would come in a couple times a week. We had corporate meetings and a lot of dinners with hedge funds ”“ on any given day, someone like Steven Cohen or Derek Jeter or A-Rod would be there.”
With his new restaurant, Gabriele believed he is in the right place ”“ the 27 Powers Court location next to the Westport Country Playhouse that was previously the site of the Paul Newman co-owned Dressing Room restaurant until 2014 when it was replaced with Positano Ristorante, which closed in last year”™s pandemic. The adjacent theater is able to give Gabriele its banquet hall facilities if needed ”“ the restaurant can seat 150 people within its interior and up to another 50 when its two patios are open.
However, Gabriele pointed out that this is not necessarily the right time to start a restaurant. A combination of rising inflation, an elusive labor pool and a supply chain tied up in delays has frustrated his progress, resulting in his opening being delayed several times.
“It”™s been crazy,” he lamented. “Things that you would accomplish in three minutes are taking 10 times the amount of energy to get it done. Buying dishes, buying knives, buying silverware ”“ it”™s out of stock or on backorder till January.
“The same thing with the construction,” he continued. “Anything that we’re buying is through the roof ”“ five times 10 times the price, if you get it and when you get it. And I can’t even imagine it is so difficult getting waiter and bartenders ”“ I have ads everywhere and people are just not even responding, even though they know we’re a high-end place and the waiters I had in Greenwich were making money like they were from Manhattan.”
Gabriele added that food prices were also on the rise, but he did not want to pass the rising costs along to his new patrons.
“I want to try to keep the prices down,” he said, complaining that prices for his ingredients have “doubled or tripled” over the past year.
Gabriele is now aiming for a late October opening, and he is confident that he can overcome the pre-opening hurdles and pick up where he left off from his earlier restaurant experiences.
“I’ve had a lot of people who stopped by, especially like my old customers from Greenwich,” he said. “We”™re going to make it one way or another.”
