Sandro's Family Restaurant has been a landmark eatery on Trunk Road for 46 years.
The restaurant was opened on Oct. 6, 1979 by Sandro and Rose Mariotti.
Though Sandro and Rose are now deceased, the business is co-owned and operated by their children: Rick Mariotti, Fran Sparks and Patti Elliott.
Steve Elliott, Patti’s husband and Sandro’s manager, has worked at the restaurant for 30 years.
Apart from its regular breakfast, lunch and dinner menus, Sandro’s is known for its breakfast and dinner buffets.
The breakfast buffet is available from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday.
Originally available only on weekends, the dinner buffet is now available to diners six nights a week – Tuesday through Sunday – due to popular demand.
Attractively displayed in the corner of the dining room, the dinner buffet includes soup and salad, gnocchi and meatballs, vegetables, perogies, roasted chicken and potatoes, two types of chicken wings and dessert.
As popular as the buffets are, Patti and Rick said Sandro’s pizza takeout is the restaurant’s busiest feature.
“We sell lots of pizzas. Pizza, wings and panzerotti are really popular,” Patti said.
“We did have a pizza takeout from the beginning in 1979 but back then it was very small. People used to pick it up at the front of the restaurant but since COVID the takeout's gone crazy,” Rick said.
Building on that takeout success, Sandro’s cut the size of its rear banquet room in half and opened a frozen food takeout in 2023.
It includes frozen meat and cheese ravioli, gnocchi, lasagna, manicotti, meatballs, sauce, cabbage rolls, chicken cutlets, perogies, minestrone, frozen pizza, genetti, and more.
They sell 60 to 70 frozen lasagnas each week.
“Our pasta is homemade. There aren’t very many places that still make homemade pasta,” Rick said.
Running a business - especially in the Sault’s competitive restaurant industry – requires commitment to excellence in food and dedication to customers. The Mariotti siblings have proudly carried on the business started by their parents.
“My sister Fran started as a student and has been here since day one in 1979. I came in later years, in 1990, to help my mother because my father had passed away. We grew up in the business. It’s in our blood. This is what we know,” Rick said.
“I was a hairstylist but I’ve retired from that business and I came back to help out five years ago,” Patti said.
“We love it. We see all the regular customers coming back and they enjoy it. We have our regulars but we’re also getting new customers, people from out of town. We just love to see all of them. Through the years we’ve seen our regular customers as young children and now they come in with families of their own,” Rick said.
Apart from their menu and work ethic, the family credits its staff as another reason for Sandro’s success.
“We've had long-term employees. We have some great staff members. We appreciate Ron Rose, our front end house manager for the last 12 years,” Fran said.
It also helps that the siblings get along – most of the time.
“Some days we have our feuds but it’s quickly over,” Rick said with a smile.
“Nobody's hurt each other after 40 years, so we’re all good,” Fran laughed.
