Vinnie's Neighborhood Restaurant is a fun find in Asheville, NC

If our Grove Park Inn stories have you in the mood now to head to the Blue Ridge Mountains for the fall leaf season, we can highly recommend a wonderful family eatery. Vinnie's Neighborhood Italian Restaurant was just recently introduced to us by our friends in the area.

We had a rousing fun night here, sampling many different dishes delivered with flair by our server, Emily. It happened to be $5 martini night, but we stuck with the vino.

The location is easy to find, and the ambiance is exactly what you would expect from a neighborhood eatery: casual dress, comfortable seating, friendly service, a menu that will satisfy young and old alike. Yet there is a twist: Vinnie’s used to be Savoy, an upscale restaurant that operated successfully here for years.

Savoy owner Eric Scheffer, a loquacious, gregarious man who exudes a love of life (he’s part owner of a vineyard in Argentina, for goodness sake), now owns and operates Vinnie’s. The economy hit Savoy’s upscale operation hard; so Scheffer had to make a tough decision: close or reinvent. Lovers of Italian food served graciously, inexpensively and abundantly, be happy that Scheffer chose the latter. Many of the menu options are the same, with recipes Scheffer has drawn from relatives, friends and former chefs.

Also happy are the 20-or-so employees Scheffer kept on payroll through his decision to continue operating under a new name and concept. He chose not to quit, not to close, not to lay off employees. His story is one familiar to those who know Asheville’s history of not going belly up in a crisis.

In the late 1920s, Asheville was a bustling city largely based on banking and real estate. Then the Great Depression hit, crippling the city and putting it and its citizens in debt for over $56 million, much linked to bonds for infrastructure projects. But rather than default, the city continued to pay back those debts over 50-some years. Sure, economic growth was slow, but one of the beautiful results is Asheville’s architecture today – many of the buildings dating to the 1920s still stand. Today Asheville boasts one of the most impressive, comprehensive collections of Art Deco architecture in the America, more than any southeastern city outside of Miami Beach.

So when someone like Eric Scheffer decides to stand firm and face hard times, his fellow citizens are rooting for him.

So are we, and we also applaud him for his great food, fun atmosphere, and super service.

To give us a taste of what’s available to his customers, he had Chef Austin Tisdale prepare a sampling menu that came in waves of sights, smells and, of course, marvelous tastes. Throw in all our table chatter about how good everything was and the bits we picked up with our fingers, and the dinner became a sensory delight.

Keep in mind as you read this that there are four of us at the table (dishes are shown in the slideshow).

Up first is a basket of Vinnie’s Famous Garlic Knots loaded with butter garlic, Parmesan cheese and fresh Italian parsley. Also from the antipasti section come Calamari Fritti (friend calamari with marinara sauce), Clams Oreganato (stuffed and baked little-neck clams, bread crumbs, fresh parsley, oregano, and garlic), and Steamed Mussels in a white-wine garlic-tomato broth.

Our Insalata course is Caprese, huge slices of fresh tomatoes, mozzarella cheese, olive oil and basil. For the evening, we ordered a house red wine that was poured from carafes into small, squat glasses just like in those great little neighborhood eateries we adore all over Italy.

From the Pasta section, we’re served Spaghetti Puttanesca (tomato, capers, olives, anchovies, basil and garlic) and Rigatoni Bolognese (ground beef, veal, sausage and a red-wine tomato sauce). Both were delicious, even if the Bolognese was a little lighter (perhaps cream was used) than the traditional color of a Bolognese sauce. It was still voted one of our favorites of the night.

A Veal Piccata (lemon-caper butter sauce) arrives next along with two of Vinnie’s specialties: Sausage, Peppers and Onions (which everyone thought was fantastic - the sausage is shipped from a New Jersey supplier), and Eggplant Parmigiana made from "Sonny’s recipe" (Sonny's short for Sonia, Scheffer’s mom). Like we really needed any more food, a bowl of meatballs is presented, of which any Italian mother would be proud.

Vinnie’s menu offer dozens of Italian dishes - with pizza, calzone, and heroes added for good measure - that more than complement the casual, classy neighborhood atmosphere Scheffer has created. We tried to pass on dessert, but our words fell on deaf ears. A plate of New York Cheese Cake and two Cannoli were set in front of us. To our surprise, we four ate it all. Lots of people living in and visiting the Asheville area are doing the same with everything on Vinnie’s menu.

If You're Going: Vinnie's Neighborhood Italian Restaurant is located at 641 Merrimon Avenue, Asheville, NC 28804. Call 828-253-1077 or visit www.vinniesitalian.com.

For our story on Grove Park Inn Resort and Spa, click here.

For our story on the Grove Park Inn Spa, click here.

If you enjoyed this story, you might also enjoy these:

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Luxury Travel Examiner Kathy M. Newbern and spouse, J.S. Fletcher, report on luxury destinations, spas and cruising around the globe. They are award-winning members of the Society of American Travel Writers and created YourSpaReport.com and YourNovel.com, their personalized romance novel business.