During a trip back out to Fort Wayne to do a couple days of seminars for our largest account, my colleague from Montreal wanted to go out for some Italian food. We had gone to Salvatori's, an Italian restaurant with six locations in and around Fort Wayne, on a previous visit. (Click here to see the Road Tips review on Salvatori's.) I suggested we take a look at some other Italian restaurants around the area. I found a couple that weren't too far from our hotel and I did a mental coin-flip and settled on a place called Zianos Italian Eatery for dinner that evening.
George Rongos grew up in the small village of Polykerasos, Greece and immigrated to the U.S. in 1954. He ended up in Fort Wayne where relatives from Greece had moved to years before. George was 18 when he got to the U.S. and couldn't speak English. On top of that, George wasn't properly schooled in his home country and couldn't read or write in his native Greek language.
Less than a year after George got to Fort Wayne, he got a job at a steel mill that was just west of the downtown area of the city. George willed himself to learn how to speak, read and write the English language and turned out to be a quick learner. In 1965, he married a Greek girl - Eleni - who had also immigrated to the U.S.
Just across from the steel plant was a small grocery store - Joe's Grocery. George would go into Joe's Grocery on a regular basis and would half-jokingly say that he was going to own the place one day. When Joe died in 1985, his widow wanted to sell the business. By this time George Rongos had over 30 years in at the steel plant and was eligible for retirement. George and Eleni bought the grocery store with an eye on changing a few things up.
George and Eleni were frustrated that a grocery store in Fort Wayne didn't have some of the basics needed for traditional Greek cuisine. They would go to Chicago to buy the foods and ingredients for the recipes Eleni had brought from Greece. But they also realized that there wasn't a place that offered ingredients for Mexican food, for Middle Eastern food, for Eastern European food, and for Northern Africa cuisine - cultures that had settled in Fort Wayne in the 1950's, 60's, 70's and into the 80's.
George would go to food purveyors in Chicago and buy all different types of international foods for his clientele. If someone would come in and ask for something, George would do some investigating and would find a distributor who sold the item. George's Grocery eventually turned into George's International Market.
Pictured right - Eleni and George Rongos. Photo courtesy Salsa Grille Facebook page.
Eleni and George had five children - Judy, Mike, Jimmy, Chris and Jerry. All five children worked in the grocery store growing up with the parents instilling an ethic of hard work and attention to detail into each of their kids. When George and Eleni decided to retire from the business in 1997, Chris and Jerry Rongos took over the business from their parents. That same year, George's International Market moved to its present day location just south of downtown Fort Wayne. (Chris and Jerry Rongos eventually opened a fast casual Mexican restaurant - Salsa Grille - attached to the grocery store. Using ingredients sourced from George's International Market and making their own line of various salsa, Salsa Grille became a popular destination. There are now five Salsa Grille locations in the greater Fort Wayne area.)
Jimmy Rongos got into the property investment business and became a partner in Liddell Investments, a Fort Wayne-based property management firm. Some of the properties Liddell Investments owned were restaurants and night clubs. In 2009, Jimmy took the plunge into the restaurant world opening Zianos Italian Eatery. The restaurant became a local favorite for their family-friendly offerings at an affordable price. Today there are three Zianos Italian Eateries around Fort Wayne.
The original one is on Covington Road on the city's southwest side. This is the one that my colleague and I ended up when we went to Zianos for dinner. (see map) It's located on the corner of a strip mall just off Jefferson Ave, the main road into central Fort Wayne from that side of town. It's not a big place on the inside and pretty generic looking in terms of the overall atmosphere. We noticed a lot of people coming in to pick up "to-go" orders, including pizza. The place seemed to be popular with families.
We took a seat at a table on one side of the restaurant. Our server that evening was a young lady by the name of Abbi. After leaving us a couple menus, she came out a big later with a plate of complementary bruschetta for the table. We both ordered a couple Peroni beers they had on tap to start out. The bruschetta was very good and a nice start to our experience at Zianos.
Looking through the menu, I was sort of taken aback by the pricing. Not that it was outrageous, just the opposite. It appeared to be a great value up and down the menu. Appetizers such as baked ravioli, meatballs with mozzarella and marinara sauce, and garlic cheese bread were all under $7.00. A small house salad was $2.99, pizzas started out at $10.49 for a 10" size, entrees such as chicken marsala, tilapia Florentine, and fettuccine alfredo with shrimp were all priced under $15.00, and pasta dishes such as spaghetti & meatballs, Fontanini sausage and peppers with penne pasta, and lasagna were all under $11.00. And each night during the week there's a special meal offered that comes with a meal for $9.49. No wonder it was a popular place for families!
My colleague is vegetarian and Zianos had a handful of options on the menu including the pasta primavera shown below. It was served to him piping hot as you can easily see the steam rising from the plate. It featured a mixture of fresh broccoli, cauliflower and mushrooms with penne pasta in a white wine butter sauce. My buddy said that the veggies were cooked perfectly with a bit of a crunch and weren't mushy at all. He said his meal was a spot-hitter.
I ended up getting the meat (ground pork/beef) filled ravioli topped with a marinara sauce. Along with the meal, I got a glass of the Seaglass Pinot Noir. Grated parmesan and fresh herbs were sprinkled on the top. I didn't really expect much from the looks of the dish, but from the first bite all apprehension went out the window. The marinara sauce was tangy and a bit sweet, the pillowy ravioli were easy to cut and the meat inside the ravioli had a great flavor. I was more than impressed with what I ordered and how well it tasted.
And on top of that, it was all a great value! Two beers, a glass of wine and two pasta dinners set us back just under $60 bucks with taxes and a nice tip for Abbi who was on top of things for us during our visit. It's no wonder families gravitate toward Zianos Italian Eatery because of the great value of the food they serve. The place is a little generic in atmosphere, but the food more than makes up for the bland surroundings. We were both more than happy with what we got and did I mention that Zianos was a great value? That's something you don't exactly see in restaurants these days.
Comments