FARGO — Get ready to round up some pasta! Spaghetti Western is coming to downtown Fargo.
Fabrizio Di Gianni and his wife, Brighid Maguire, plan to open their Italian restaurant this spring (mid-April to early May) at 524 Broadway, a corner storefront that has housed restaurants or bakeries for many years.
Di Gianni vows to fill the “void of pasta” in downtown Fargo by serving high-quality Italian food at prices families can afford.
The menu will include traditional sauces and imported cheeses and pastas, as well as homemade pastas.
“I was born and raised in Italy. I am going to be in the kitchen. I am going to cook as we cook in the motherland,” Di Gianni said Thursday, March 16.
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Di Gianni most recently worked three years as lead server at Gordon Ramsey Hell’s Kitchen restaurant in Stateline, Nevada. He’s also a sommelier and was in charge of wine training for the Lake Tahoe resorts-area restaurant.
Maguire has been the restaurant manager since September of last year for Rosewild, which is at the Jasper Hotel in downtown Fargo's RDO Building.
Di Gianni said entrees will run in the $10-20 range, and that there will also be “some affordable, delicious Italian wine.”
“This is going to be like a trattoria, serving really good food,” he said.
Di Gianni started looking for restaurant spaces in Fargo since April 2022, moving to the Fargo area in September. He was determined to be downtown and settled on 524 Broadway. It's a small space, with room for about 10 tables, but he says it will work.
“I will make sure that anyone who comes in that door and dines with us will leave happy,” he said.
A liquor license request for Spaghetti Western will be heard by the city’s Liquor Control Board on Tuesday, March 21, a meeting agenda says.
A Class GH license is being sought. It allows beer and wine service without a bar. The license also requires the restaurant to ring up a higher dollar amount in food sales than alcohol sales, City Auditor Steve Sprague said Thursday, March 16.
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“As long as they’re not trying to get into the bar business, that’s the right license for them,” Sprague said.
If the Liquor Control Board backs the license request, it is scheduled to be heard by the City Commission on Monday, April 3, documents indicate.
From 2003 to 2017, 524 Broadway was the home of Josie’s Corner Cafe & Bake Shop.
According to Forum files, Tracy and Randy Walvatne had purchased what was then Cynthia’s Custom Cakes, and changed the name to Josie's Corner after the original owner, Cynthia Herfindahl, was no longer involved.
Most recently, the street-level storefront was home to A&E Liberian Restaurant.
Forum food critic Eric Daeuber praised A&E Liberian in an August 2019 review. However, the eatery appears to have quietly closed sometime later. The last entry on the restaurant’s Facebook page is dated late November 2020.
Other businesses on the west side of the 500 Block of Broadway include Bismarck Tavern, Cowboy Jack’s, Beyond Running, Outermost Layer, Blue Eyed Girl Salon and Discontent.
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