Ristorante Luciano has gone out of business at Bellevue Square on Bellevue Way, according to an article on eater.com. The Italian restaurant will be replaced by the Spice Route Indian cuisine, which currently has a restaurant within Bellevue’s Crossroads area.
Ristorante Luciano owner, Luciano Bardinelli had owned and been involved with many Seattle restaurants over the years. The Bellevue Collection location was his last. According to the article Bardinelli was quoted saying, “I owed a lot of money, but Mr. Freeman released me. And he gave me a going-away party. He paid for 60-70 people.”
There is not currently a projection on when Spice Route will open.
Ristorante Luciano has gone out of business at Bellevue Square on Bellevue Way, according to an article on eater.com. The Italian restaurant will be replaced by the Spice Route Indian cuisine, which currently has a restaurant within Bellevue’s Crossroads area.
Ristorante Luciano owner, Luciano Bardinelli had owned and been involved with many Seattle restaurants over the years. The Bellevue Collection location was his last. According to the article, Bardinelli was quoted saying, “I owed a lot of money, but Mr. Freeman released me. And he gave me a going-away party. He paid for 60-70 people.”
There is not currently a projection on when Spice Route will open.
Tags: Bellevue Square Spice Route
Too bad. My wife really liked their gnocchi (they were ricotta based compared to the typical potato based that you get elsewhere). And I loved their pana cotta. Well, their service was kinda bad – felt they were always a bit grumpy. May be that was to offer a true european experience 🙂
I haven’t really been to spice route in the crossroads area. Hope the food is good!
Thanks goodness. How that place stayed in business so long I will never understand. I’ll miss reading the amusing yelp reviews but look forward to spice route.
Very cool. Too bad for Luciano – I think they have the very lowest score on Yelp that I’ve ever seen, and I work in the business. Will be interesting to see how Spice Route does – good luck to them – I hope they have a killer lunch buffet.
People on Yelp seem to hate Luciano with a vengence. Is it really that bad? Since the ratings was so bad, I never dared to try it out.
Also I think Yelp (secretly) might have something to do with it too… The “Yelp sort” ranks a 1-star review in 2008 as the top review, while Yelp does rank 5-star reviews at the top of some other restaurants even though some are not great at all.
@Kevin: I don’t trust Yelp anymore. I left a less than glowing review there for the Tap Room. They were slow, they couldn’t get the orders right (two wrong sides and toppings on a table of four), and they sent me home with the wrong leftover box (as in, not even the food that belonged to anyone at our table).
Yelp simply deleted it. Not just “not published it”, but completely deleted it, so I can’t even see it for myself when I log into my account.
Ever since then, I don’t even check Yelp ratings anymore. I still read some individual reviews, from people whose judgement I’ve come to trust, but I completely ignore the ratings, as there is no way to tell what Yelp deleted, and what the effect would have been.
Indeed, it’s a miracle that place stayed open as long as it did. It was on the busiest street in Bellevue and yet it was still unable to attract customers. It’s no wonder they were in debt.
“I owed a lot of money, but Mr. Freeman released me. And he gave me a going-away party. He paid for 60-70 people.”
The power of a relationship. Most owners would be sued by KDC for all their personal assets for any monies owed, as they requires personal guarantees.