By Adriana Yarkin, Copy Editor
A new homestyle Italian restaurant is in the works for Vashon town. It will be located at the old shell station, where Saucy Sisters Brick Oven Pizzeria recently closed, and will be operated by Dre Neeley and Pepa Brower, who also own and operate Gravy, the local American-style restaurant across the street.
They will co-own the restaurant with Michael McConnell and his wife, Elizabeth Weber-McConnell, who own the Caffe Vita coffee shop chain and Via Tribunali pizza restaurants in both Seattle and New York City.
Renovations for the new restaurant will begin in May. Both the interior and exterior will be redesigned, and the owners hope to debut the restaurant by late summer or early fall.
The new restaurant will be called “Sugo,” which means “sauce” in Italian — or, as Neeley and Brower think of it, the Italian equivalent of gravy.
And in a way, Sugo will be the Italian equivalent of Gravy.
“I really like to cook Italian food,” Neeley said. “It reminds me of cooking Southern food. You cook it from the heart; you cook it from recipes that are tried and true.”
Sugo will be open seven days a week, likely featuring both lunch and dinner. The menu will encompass wood-fired pizzas, pastas — yes, including some gluten-free options — and salads, served family-style.
“We’ve written a menu that is really just based on what we like to eat,” Brower said.
Currently at Gravy, Neeley is the chef, while Brower runs the front of the house. The convenient, across-the-street location of Sugo will allow them to balance their roles in both restaurants at the same time.
To stay current, couple dines out in Seattle on a weekly basis and travels at every opportunity; they spent the month of January in Italy and Spain. Additionally, Neeley carries some experience in Italian cooking from a previous job working for an Italian restaurant in Seattle, and — according to Brower — reads “a copious amount of cookbooks.”
Some recipes will be traditional, and some will have a more modern take.
“We’ll keep it changing and new,” Neeley said.
Some fluctuation in the menu can be attributed to the seasons. Since Gravy’s inception two years ago, Neeley and Brower have successfully incorporated a large amount of produce, eggs and poultry from approximately six local farms into the menu.
“I’ll never say no,” Neeley said. “[Farmers will] come in, and I’m like, ‘I’ll take all of that! I don’t know what I’m [going to] do with it yet, but I’ll take it!’”
Neeley says that he hopes to continue and even expand this practice at Sugo.
“It’s just the right thing to do,” Neeley said. “It keeps the economy on the island going.”
Neeley and Brower hope to see Sugo become highly beneficial to the local economy — not only will it support local growers, but it will also create approximately eight new jobs and, hopefully, draw additional customers to Vashon town from both on and off the island.
“It’s really exciting to start a new business and introduce people on this island to more options,” Brower said.
The couple look forward to the challenges posed in opening Sugo, and plans to continue to do what they do at Gravy.
“You build your options by having more than one restaurant,” Brower said, speaking from the perspective of a business owner. “In a weird way, it allows you to have more freedom.”