Courtesy Gregg Goldman
Don’t be surprised if Katie’s Pizza & Pasta Osteria (9568 Manchester Road, 314-942-6555) in Rock Hill looks a little different on your next visit. Last week, the popular eatery underwent a 48-hour renovation to give it a “more mature, modern feel,” says Katie Collier, who owns the restaurant with her husband, Ted.
“We opened up on a shoestring budget with a Kickstarter campaign,” says Collier, noting that the restaurant’s tables and chairs were salvaged, mismatched pieces. “We decided that with the success of the restaurant and it being open more than five years, to give it an updated look.”
For the new design, the Colliers called on local designer David Kent Richardson. “He’s a friend of our family, … he’s been a regular since we opened, so he knew the clientele, he knew the vibe, and he knows us really well,” she says.
Richardson’s new design includes high-gloss white walls and a new white quartz bar. They decided to keep the design fairly simple in order to showcase all-new artwork by Ted and Collier’s mother, artist Belinda Lee.
However, that didn’t stop them from choosing dramatic Flos lighting, which is made up of draped wires and hanging pendants—and that, appropriately, looks a bit like pasta, says Collier.
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Gregg Goldman
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Gregg Goldman
Outside, the patio also got a makeover with assistance from Greenscape Gardens. The space is now surrounded by mini-cypress trees, and herbs and flowers in terra cotta pots are sprinkled among the new teak tables and coral-colored chairs. “It’s much more of an Italian garden than before, but we still didn’t lose the Midwestern roots,” Richardson says.
For Richardson, the biggest challenge was designing for the restaurant’s diverse clientele, which changes at different times of the day. “The restaurant is multifaceted in that it’s open for lunch and dinner, and you have different types of people eating for different reasons,” he says, adding that Katie’s Pizza draws everyone from senior citizens to families with young children to couples on a date.
“I had to keep in mind whether a chair was going to look good with a high chair next to it,” he says, laughing.
The renovation coincides with the restaurant’s new menu, which includes main courses for the first time. Collier developed the menu while taking some time away after the birth of her daughter last September.
The restaurant “has been open almost six years, and it’s been packed every single day, which we are grateful for,” Collier says. “But that wears on a restaurant, and I think everyone is excited to see what happens next.”
