35 Years Is Not an Accident
In Orlando's restaurant industry, lasting five years is an achievement. Lasting ten is rare. Lasting over 35 years, in the same location, under the same family ownership, serving the same from-scratch Italian food, is something that only happens when a restaurant is doing nearly everything right.
Ciao Italia Ristorante opened in 1991 on Westwood Boulevard, and it has been there ever since. The Italian restaurant since 1991 in Orlando was founded by a family that immigrated from southern Italy, and the recipes on the menu today are the same recipes they brought with them. That kind of continuity is not a marketing angle. It is the foundation of everything that makes the restaurant work.
What Orlando Looked Like in 1991
When Ciao Italia opened, the area around SeaWorld and Westwood Boulevard looked very different. The tourist corridor was still developing. Many of the hotels and attractions that exist today had not been built yet. Opening an authentic Italian restaurant in that environment was a bet on the future, and the family made it work by focusing on what they could control: the quality of the food and the warmth of the hospitality.
Over the next three decades, Orlando grew into one of the most visited cities in the world. Restaurants came and went by the hundreds. National chains moved in. Trendy concepts appeared and disappeared. Through all of it, Ciao Italia stayed on Westwood Boulevard, doing exactly what it had done since day one.
