As a cornerstone restaurant on the Peninsula, Old Venice is old school.
\n“We were one of the original restaurants in the Point Loma area,” said Winston MaGinnis, head of catering\/marketing at the family-owned and operated establishment at 2910 Canon St. “We just celebrated our 35th anniversary.”
\nCurrent owner Carl Walter purchased the Italian restaurant more than three decades ago. The restaurant\u2019s longtime general manager is Brett Wilmot.
\nCustomers are special at Old Venice and are treated accordingly.
\n“Someone came in the other day and said, \u2018We had our one-year anniversary here 25 years ago and we wanted to re-create that night,\u2019” said MaGinnis. “We had the same dishes (we had then) from our little secret menu of past dishes. That made it really special.”
\n“I\u2019m a part of something really nice here,” added MaGinnis.
\nOld Venice is a white-tablecloth, sit-down dinner place. But that\u2019s where the formality ends.
\n“It\u2019s up to you,” said MaGinnis, noting there\u2019s no dress code, though customers typically don\u2019t come in T-shirts and shorts on weekend evenings.
\n“We\u2019re also dog-friendly, all-ages friendly and kid-friendly,” he said. “We have great kids menus. We really appeal to everyone.”
\nA recent addition at Old Venice is live jazz music.
\n“Jazz 88.3 does a 1 \u00bd-hour set every Sunday with award-winning musicians,” said MaGinnis. “The second half of the show they allow younger musicians to come in and jam. It\u2019s been a real success.”
\nOld Venice head chef George Calvario talked about the restaurant\u2019s unique synthesis of northern Italian and American cuisine, revealing the secret of the menu\u2019s ongoing success.
\n“The food is constant, always the same, the same recipes, specialties of the house, fish of the day,” Calvario said noting that \u2018familiarity\u2019 keeps regulars coming back for seconds.
\nAnd the restaurant is in a prime location. “It\u2019s in a real secure area, very quiet,” said Calvario.
\n“It\u2019s right next to all the yacht clubs,” noted MaGinnis.
\nAmbiance is another thing Old Venice dishes out in large portions.
\n“We put romantic candles out on the tables on the patio,” pointed out Calvario.
\nPrices vary at Old Venice. MaGinnis said you can come in and get a great lasagna for $12, or a full lamb meal for $32.
\n“It\u2019s a nice range,” he said.
\nThe restaurant also hosts lots of special events: anniversaries, weddings, and birthdays.
\n“Someone called in just the other day and wants to propose to his girlfriend,” said MaGinnis adding, “When you come in here it\u2019s a real sense of family.”
\nThe restaurant also recently updated its specialty cocktail menu. Now in addition to the traditional Godfather and Godmother classic Italian cocktails, guests can order bourbon whiskey-inspired drinks, which they can sip while munching on appetizers like steamed mussels or a cheese board.
\nAnd don\u2019t forget desserts, which, like everything else on the menu, are special whether you order a tiramasu, a gelato, a cheesecake, or cr\u00e8me brulet.
\nThere are about 50 employees at Old Venice. Many have been there a decade or more.
\nThe kitchen at Old Venice is open Wednesdays through Thursdays, 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.; 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays and 4 to 9 p.m. Sundays.
\nFor more information call 619-222-5888 or visit www.oldvenicerestaurant.com.
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As a cornerstone restaurant on the Peninsula, Old Venice is old school. “We were one of the original restaurants in the Point Loma area,” said Winston MaGinnis, head of catering\/marketing at the family-owned and operated establishment at 2910 Canon St. “We just celebrated our 35th anniversary.” Current owner Carl Walter purchased the Italian restaurant more […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":275499,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11561","_seopress_titles_title":"Delicious Italian dishes and service keeps customers coming back to Old Venice","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11561],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-275498","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-peninsula-beacon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275498","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=275498"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275498\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/275499"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=275498"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=275498"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=275498"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}