THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, July 21, 1996 TAG: 9607190199
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 08 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY BILL REED, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 44 lines
Come Aug. 12, Robin Tuite, owner of Bella Monte Gourmet Italian Market Place & Cafe, hopes to be in a newer and bigger location with an expanded menu and array of food and gift offerings.
The new site will be Birdneck Point Commons, a $1.4 million, 12,000 square foot strip center now under construction on Laskin Road, near Birdneck Road.
The project is being developed by Allen L. Pyle of Pyle Realty Inc. of Virginia Beach, who said 7,000 square feet of the streetfront complex has been reserved for Bella Monte.
That will almost triple the size of the space now occupied by the business at its Hilltop East shopping center outlet.
The remaining space will be leased to another business that will ``be compatible'' with the gourmet market and restaurant, said Pyle. ``We're talking to a number of people about it.''
Bella Monte was a business started in Virginia Beach 25 years ago by an Italian-American family from New York, who later sold it to a local couple named Dennis and Diana Singleton, said Tuite.
Tuite purchased the business nine years ago from the Singletons, after it opened at Hilltop East.
``It started as a small Italian deli,'' said Tuite. ``It's developed into an international business and features products from around the globe.''
When the doors swing open, Bella Monte will feature a 100-seat restaurant, a small bar, a full-service deli, a complete selection of international wines, a retail grocery operation that features European products and a gift and packaging service for those products.
Also to be offered will be pizzas and an ABC license that will allow customers to buy beer and wine for on or off-premises consumption.
The steel, brick and glass structure is rising from a site once occupied by a karate studio, which faced Laskin Road near the Birdneck Road intersection.
Pyle said he hopes to have construction finished by the first week in August, and Tuite expects to move her business into the building by Aug. 5.
The complex was designed by Randy Lyall, a Norfolk architect, and is being built by McKenzie Construction Corp. of Virginia Beach. by CNB