The closing of Riccardo’s Ristorante in Schaumburg this week ends a 35-year story as much about the people behind it as the beloved business itself, but plans are already afoot to bring a new dining concept to the space.
Or, perhaps, an old one.
Co-owner Katy Garcia said the recent sale of the restaurant’s assets, long planned because of challenges that arose during the pandemic, turned out to be fortuitous due to health issues now faced by her husband and business partner, Waldo, leading to his preparation for a triple bypass surgery on his heart.
“It would have been harder if this sale didn’t go through,” Katy said.
The prospective new operator of the space at 1170 S. Roselle Road is planning to introduce the first Midwest location of what he described as a very old, very famous restaurant brand from Delhi, India.
Two other parties interested in continuing the Riccardo’s concept came forward only after the deal was struck. But Katy said she’d be able to provide either of them with what they would need to know to set up somewhere else.
Schaumburg’s Riccardo’s opened in August 1989, with Katy serving as the original manager for a partnership that got permission to use the name of Riccardo’s in Chicago. Partner Alex Koustas had worked there for 20 years, and it changed the plan for the Schaumburg restaurant to be an upscale Giordano’s.
The owners of Riccardo’s Ristorante in Schaumburg have closed, but a famous and well-established brand from Delhi, India is expected to move into the space at 1170 S. Roselle Road.
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Waldo, who’d also made a name for himself as a chef in Chicago, was hired in Schaumburg in 1992. He and Katy met there and married, but she left for a job in the airline industry in 1994 to make more time for her new role as a stepmother.
“It was really hard working here day and night,” she said of her life as a restaurant manager.
Katy rose through the ranks in her new field, all the way through the cataclysmic changes that followed Sept. 11, 2001. But when Riccardo’s ownership faced foreclosure in 2003, she and Waldo were in a position to swoop in and take over.
Customers never knew how close the restaurant came to closing then, rather than undergoing a quick change of ownership, Katy said.
“We were young and naive,” she laughed. “We thought we could do anything. It was mainly just our desire to be a neighborhood business. For many years, my motivation to work was that I could help people. I’ve always been that person. Whatever I had to do, I was that person.”
The community eventually noticed that the owners of Riccardo’s were more than just business people and Katy received the village of Schaumburg’s Volunteer of the Year Award in 2016.
Former Schaumburg Township Supervisor Mary Wroblewski has been friends with Katy a long time and said she also was recently recognized for her service by the Schaumburg chapter of the Sons and Daughters of Italy in America.
“She’s a Schaumburg treasure,” Wroblewski said. “She will be greatly missed by the organizations and all the people in the community. It’s just hard to believe they’re not going to be there. That was the place to go for birthday parties, small graduation parties. Groups had meetings there. And on top of everything else, the food was great!”
As hard as the COVID-19 pandemic was on most restaurants, Katy said she really did have to adhere to all the protocols and shut down because she has a blood-clotting disorder that made her more susceptible to the infectious disease.
At a certain point, when their lease expired, Katy and Waldo transitioned to a month-to-month lease to have more freedom to ponder their options.
Not even their most loyal customers knew of their plans to step down until the deal they’d been hoping for was confirmed last weekend.
Even as they’re making plans for themselves now, they’re still helping others. Katy was in the process of donating items to St. Peter Lutheran Church on Tuesday.
“We’re just very grateful for all the years people have come here,” she said. “There just comes a point where you say we need to let go and we need to live our lives.”