New Italian restaurant to open in St. Charles

The St. Charles Hotel is described as an "Italianate" structure in the National Register of Historic Places nomination form submitted in 1982. It's fitting, then, that the newest restaurant to be established in the first-floor corner will serve Italian fare.

Along with leasing out the first floor of the adjoining Muller Hotel to lobbyists R&R Partners for the 72nd Legislative session, the restaurant will be the next step in a long line of uses for the historic building including stage coach stop, butcher shop, Chinese restaurant and saloon. During Prohibition, the bar area was even used as a grammar school after a fire in the schoolhouse, according to the register nomination.

In the historic corner space, most recently home of Joe Garlic's restaurant and then Cafe Del Rio, Rick and Lisa Miller are working on Devincenzi's Italian restaurant. The main entrance on the southwest corner of Third and Carson streets should be open for customers in March.

The Millers plan to create a non-smoking, family-oriented ristorante named for Lisa's mother's maiden name. The family came over on a boat and settled in the Bay area. The Millers plan to hang old black-and-white family photos on the walls, and maybe place family-style albums for diners to flip through, Lisa Miller said.

Rick's brother Dan Miller is adding to the family foundation by helping with painting and installing new flooring. He'll work as a manager once the restaurant is open, while an original Devincenzi -- Lisa's mother, Suzanne Devincenzi-Dugger -- will be in the kitchen.

The current rejuvenation, which uncovered murals painted in 1995 by Robert Bucknell for the owners of Joe Garlic's, is treading lightly on the old architecture, according to Rick Miller.

"We don't want to alter it too much," he said. "We're trying to work with what's there as much as possible."

The completed Devincenzi's will offer more home-cooked style items than chain Italian restaurants serve, according to Lisa. Their menu will include hand-rolled ravioli in more of a mushroom "gravy" than a tomato sauce. And introducing direct from the Devincenzi-family kitchen: "Wop Soup."

Lisa Miller says at a New Year's party she once hosted the guests neglected the crab and other main dishes she offered in favor of the "Wop Soup."

"They were all raving about the soup," she said.

Devincenzi's will also operate the same full-service oak bar which ran parallel to Third Street in Joe Garlic's and then Cafe Del Rio.

Rick Miller says he's talking to a cocktail bartender from Seattle who will make flavored martinis, adding to a composed, upscale feel. "We'll offer a nice, fair-priced martini," he said.

For now the square holes in the bar for slot machines will be covered over and the focus will be food and family, not gaming.

"We don't want it to be a gambling establishment," said Rick Miller. "Our focus will be families," he said. "It comes from a real family-oriented ideal. We enjoy family, and hope that the whole family dining thing will catch on too."

The current owner of the St. Charles Hotel building, Bob McFadden, is offering the hotel for sale. McFadden purchased the hotel in 1993 for $750,000 and spent about $450,000 of his money and more than $30,000 in Carson City Redevelopment Authority incentive money restoring the property. The asking price was $1.2 million when he put it on the market in April of 2001.