Dec. 2 P.M. Roundup: More hot details on Russillo's

Good afternoon, shoppers. As promised, I got more details on Russillo’s.

• But first, a correction. I mentioned this morning about Rachael Ray’s magazine taping a few cooking segments that would air on televisions at Albertson’s produce section.

Turns out the perky cook herself won’t be in the segments at all. Rather, Nikki Cascone, a restaurateur, and Stacey Antine, a nutritionist, will be the ones cooking during the segments.

• Here are more details about Russillo’s. 
Co-owner Brandon Russell said that he was inspired by the support people gave him while he was cooking pizzas during the Central Washington State Fair. Many of them asked him to reconsider opening his restaurant again.

So when the owners of Track 29 approached Russell about reopening there, he took the opportunity. “I believe in Yakima and, more importantly, the people in Yakima believe in me,” he said.

But the new restaurant won’t be at the old location. Russell opted for two suites located closer to Yakima Avenue. The space is 1,200 square feet, about double the space of the previous Track 29 location.

The restaurant, though, will return to the model they had at the old location — a simple menu of pizza, pasta and gelato and free entertainment on the weekends. The larger space will also include room for a full-service bar and a bathroom. Like the other Russillo’s restaurants, this one will have an Italian theme, with art of major landmarks such as the Vatican and The Coliseum.

Russell hopes to open the restaurant before Christmas. To make that deadline, he’s been working 18-hour days, surviving on pickle-sized jars of coffee.

As I mentioned earlier, the restaurant’s major investor is Lonnie Davis, a Yakima native who was part of the 1953 Yakima Beetles baseball team that were the American Legion National Champions. Davis, who now lives in Puyallup, has been an investor for several years and was helping Russell open a location in the west side of the state.

KIT news and sports personality Mike Bastinelli has also been an investor for the restaurant in the past. This time he’s not an investor. Rather he will be involved in a new role — restaurant operations. You will be seeing Bastinelli run the restaurant when he’s not working for the radio station.

Such a role isn’t new for him — his father ran restaurants while Bastinelli was growing up. His father asked him to get into the restaurant business, but he wanted to be on the radio instead.

Now he gets to do both. And he looks forward to the restaurant going back to its  glory days. He and his wife were regulars at the first Track 29 location.

“It’s a great product; it’s a great concept,” he said.

• If reopening a restaurant wasn’t enough, Russell’s editing a movie, too.

Russell, who was involved in the movie industry before opening the first Russillo’s in 2004, is the cinematographer for Forbidden Fruit. According to the movie’s summary on The Internet Movie Database, an apple farmer finds out that his orchard happens to share the same irrigation ditch with a sexual enhancement drug factory. You can figure out what happens.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1302175/

And in another Yakima connection, the movie is directed by Josh Hodgins, creator of the television series “Jackson Horn.”

So there you have it. As always, all corrections, complaints and tips can go via the comment box or e-mailing me at mhoang@yakimaherald.com.

-- Posted by Mai Hoang

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