{"id":64394,"date":"2019-04-30T15:48:22","date_gmt":"2019-04-30T21:48:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/lotsa-pasta-and-thatza-pizza-reopening-downtown\/"},"modified":"2019-04-30T21:48:22","modified_gmt":"2019-04-30T21:48:22","slug":"lotsa-pasta-and-thatza-pizza-reopening-downtown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/lotsa-pasta-and-thatza-pizza-reopening-downtown\/","title":{"rendered":"Lotsa Pasta and That\u2019za Pizza reopening downtown"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Lotsa
Lotsa Pasta and That\u2019za Pizza is reopening downtown in the site that formerly housed Jimmer\u2019s Backcountry BBQ. They are planning on a soft opening Mother\u2019s Day weekend.<\/span>Erika Alvero\/The Journal<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

A Cortez dining staple is coming back to town, with plans to open Mother\u2019s Day weekend.<\/p>\n

Lotsa Pasta and That\u2019za Pizza operated on the south side of Cortez for about 15 years but closed April 2018 when its prior owners decided to retire. It\u2019s reopening downtown on Main Street, though, in the building formerly home to Jimmer\u2019s Backcountry BBQ.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m excited to bring it back,\u201d said Stormy Cordova, the restaurant\u2019s new owner. \u201cKeep it a locals\u2019 favorite. We\u2019re going to keep everything the same; don\u2019t change something that\u2019s not broken.\u201d<\/p>\n

Before assuming her current role, Cordova worked with Lotsa Pasta for eight years.<\/p>\n

Julie and Wayne Nadolske started the restaurant 18 years ago in what is now La Casita, Cordova said. The business did well, and after about a year, they wanted to expand, so they moved to a larger, two-story site at 1020 S. Broadway, currently home to Chronic Therapy.<\/p>\n

Lotsa Pasta and That\u2019za Pizza stayed at the Broadway site for about 15 years, until the Nadolskes decided to sell the building<\/a> early last year.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey finally got a really good offer on the building, and so they decided that they wanted to retire; they were ready to do something else with their lives,\u201d Cordova said.<\/p>\n

The team spent the last year looking for a new site, and when they heard that Jimmer\u2019s might be closing, they got in contact with the owners and made a deal, she said. They are in the midst of buying the building through a lease-to-own purchasing option.<\/p>\n

Cordova officially took over as business owner April 1.<\/p>\n

There are multiple benefits of the new site, Cordova said. The new building at 439 E. Main St. has a lot of parking space, especially compared with other downtown restaurants.<\/p>\n

The more central location also allows them to consider offering lunch, something the previous owners had discontinued at the South Broadway location.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not that far out, but people have a limited time for lunch,\u201d Cordova said of the former site. \u201cIt\u2019s hard to get out there, and get sat, and get food.\u201d<\/p>\n

Their opening in a few weeks will be a \u201csoft opening,\u201d Cordova said, with a limited menu selection of some favorites.<\/p>\n

\u201cLimited menu at first; let our staff get used to the amount of people and volume and traffic that we\u2019re going to have going on,\u201d she said. The new site is definitely a larger space, she added, even when taking into consideration the former building\u2019s two dining rooms.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur pizza kitchen was downstairs, and our pasta kitchen was upstairs,\u201d Cordova said. \u201cSeparate dining rooms. Having everything combined is going to be different; it\u2019s going to be a lot more volume, especially opening summertime.\u201d<\/p>\n

But regardless of the move, they plan on keeping much the same, including some of their favorite selections, like breadsticks, a variety of pizzas, chicken Parmesan and shrimp scampi. Their all-you-can-eat Wednesday night spaghetti dinners will be back, along with Tuesday \u201cKids Eat Free\u201d and Thursday night\u2019s \u201cSeniors Eat Free\u201d \u2013 with the purchase of a full-size entree in both cases.<\/p>\n

\u201cNobody offers pasta, and that\u2019s something that we definitely \u2013 people around here love pasta,\u201d Cordova said.<\/p>\n

ealvero@the-journal.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Restaurant taking over site of Jimmer\u2019s Backcountry BBQ<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":64395,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[431,21,28,445,450],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-64394","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-business-general","tag-cortez","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter-lead","tag-restaurant-and-catering"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64394","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64394"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64394\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/64395"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64394"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64394"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64394"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=64394"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}