Bella Coast to become Touch of Italy this month

After nearly four years in operation, Bella Coast Italian Kitchen & Market on Concord Pike is changing its name to Touch of Italy.

A Touch of Italy owner bought the business last November from Big Fish Restaurant Group and plans to change the name this month.

Big Fish Restaurant Group co-founder Eric Sugrue told The News Journal in December 2017 the company had sold its interest in the 150-seat eatery to Bob Ciprietti, co-owner of several Touch of Italy locations. 

Touch of Italy is a popular Sussex County Italian eatery chain.

"We've been friends for a long time. We've been talking about it for quite some time," Sugrue said. 

Bella Coast, on its Facebook page Sunday, posted a message that it would be closed from Sept. 17 to Sept. 19.

A reopening is planned for Sept. 20 "under our new ownership as Touch Of Italy."

The restaurant is getting a new menu, but will keep some Bella Coast dishes.

Touch of Italy is known for classic Italian dishes like manicotti and linguine fra diavolo, along with pizzas and hefty sandwiches made on freshly baked semolina bread. Shops also sell sliced meats, cheeses, an assortment of olives as well as Italian breads and desserts. 

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Bella Coast at 2530 Concord Pike opened in December 2014. It was a collaboration between Louis J. Capano III and the Big Fish Restaurant Group.

The business arrangement called for Capano to own the land and building while Big Fish operated the restaurant. 

After the sale in late 2017, Sugrue said Big Fish continue to manage the Bella Coast site on a month-to-month basis. 

The original Touch of Italy store was founded in Millville in 1992. New York native Ciprietti, who grew up on Arthur Avenue in the Bronx, and business partner Joseph Curzi III helped the company expand to other locations in coastal Sussex County.

A location at 33A Baltimore Ave. in downtown Rehoboth, which opened in 2009, has since closed. 

The salumeria/pasticceria/trattoria on Second Street in downtown Lewes has had an enthusiastic following since it first began serving customers in 2010.

There also are Touch of Italy locations off Del. 1 in Rehoboth Beach and at 6600 Coastal Highway in Ocean City, Maryland, as well as a bakery in Lewes on East Chesapeake Street.

Sugrue said the sale of his interest in Bella Coast came about when Ciprietti began looking for a restaurant location in New Castle County.

"I have no real emotional attachment to this [restaurant]," Sugrue said of the Concord Pike location, adding, he told Ciprietti "why not work out a deal and purchase this location? There's no reason for us both to compete with each other."

A Touch of Italy location had been planned for a new building in the Marvel Plaza shopping center off Stanton-Christiana Road near Stanton. It didn't happen. A planned Milford site also has not opened.

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Touch of Italy has had legal issues this past year and was undergoing an ownership shakeup, according to an April story on delmarvanow.com.

The paper reported two of the company's minority partners balked at a proposed 2017 reorganization that would have set the stage for two subsidiaries to be sold as a franchise some time in the future, according to a lawsuit filed in Delaware's Chancery Court.

Contact Patricia Talorico at (302) 324-2861 or ptalorico@delawareonline.com and on Twitter @pattytalorico