Italian restaurant chain founder slows down with latest venture

At 65 years old, Ricky Doody, founder of NCR Ventures, says he is finished with big restaurant chains and eating at the mall — despite the success those concepts delivered for his company.

NCR stands for Next Cool Restaurants. Doody and his brother Chris created the Italian restaurant chains Bravo! Cucina Italiana and Brio Tuscan Grille under NCR. They sold the parent company for the brands in 2018.

“I don’t want to do that again,” Doody says. “I love taking care of people. I love to serve, but I don’t have a lot of energy to do a lot more restaurants. It’s hard enough to build them and run them. I’d rather do a few more quality restaurants and keep it at that.” 

A few to Doody is about 10. Out of his five restaurant concepts, only one, Bar Italia, is opening in multiple locations. Two of those are in Ohio with a third under construction. The first Florida location opened in Winter Park in 2023, and the second opened in July in the Center Point plaza in Lakewood Ranch. 

“I’m tired of eating in malls,” Doody says. "There are about 20 options around the UTC Mall, but there aren’t a lot of options in Lakewood Ranch.” 

He says Bar Italia will fill a void. His aim is to get the eatery onto people’s lists of favorite restaurants where they eat a few times a month.

Tony Cox, director of training and development, says the food is high quality, made from scratch and reasonably priced. The bar-centric restaurant offers a happy hour Monday through Friday.

The menu features elevated but classic Italian dishes like chicken parmesan and veal marsala. The pasta, pizza dough, sauces and salad dressings are made in-house. The bread is freshly baked by Breadsmith of Bradenton. 

Cook James Prosso says pepperoni is his favorite pie of all the menu options, which range from a simple Margherita to “The Pig & Fig” (prosciutto is the pig).

“The pepperoni has a nice little kick to it, but it’s also sweet,” Prosso says. “We throw on a little honey, a little Calabrian pepper oil, parsley and parmesan cheese.” 

The focus is on fresh, authentic Italian dishes. Doody and his wife, Wendy Berry Doody, travel to Italy two or three times a year to bring back ideas for the menu.

The pizza dough is light and flaky, as it would be served in Florence or Rome. The marinara sauce has the flavor of garlic, but you won’t bite down on a chunk of it.

Photo by Lesley Dwyer

Another dish off the menu — spaghetti and meatballs — is more of an Italian-American dish, but Doody says it’s become so popular that the Italians serve it now, too. 

The hospitality industry is all Doody has ever known. He attended the Cornell School of Hotel Administration and opened his first restaurant with his mom, Sue Doody, when he was 22 years old. 

Lindey’s Restaurant & Bar in Columbus, Ohio remains open today. Doody calls it an institution. It also provided the connection that landed Bar Italia in the Lakewood Ranch area: the Casto family. 

CASTO is the real estate firm developing the Center Point plaza, and that firm, too, started in Columbus. 

“I’ve known the Casto family for a long time,” Doody says. “We like them a lot. We like what they do, and we’re happy to be a part of it.”

Cox says the restaurant is starting out slow with happy hour and dinner service only. 

“We’ll start implementing lunch on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, and then move forward into opening for full lunch service in a few weeks,” Cox says. “We want to make sure that everything is flowing the right way.”

This article originally appeared on sister site YourObserver.com.