- Max Fath, son of the original owners of Toscano Bistro in Richmond, has reopened the restaurant in Williston, Vermont.
- The new Toscano Bistro, located in the former Jr’s Williston space, retains much of the original restaurant’s menu, style, and staff.
- Toscano Bistro aims to provide a relaxed dining experience with tablecloths, attentive service, and a focus on lingering over meals.
WILLISTON ― Max Fath’s father hoped his son would take over Toscano Bistro in Richmond when he and his wife retired from the business in 2017. The younger Fath wasn’t ready.
Seven years later, though, he was ready. Max Fath brought Toscano Bistro back to life Dec. 17, not in Richmond but in a recent commercial development in the Taft Corners area of Williston.
Much has carried over from the original, from the menu to the style of service to the Toscano Bistro sign that once hung outside the Richmond restaurant and now decorates the new dining room. And just like in Richmond, there’s a Fath in charge in Williston, surprising considering Max Fath never thought he’d run a restaurant.
“You’ve got to be a certain amount of crazy to open one,” he said on a busy Thursday night at Toscano Bistro. “I guess I am.”
Growing up in the restaurant business
Fath grew up in Williston and in the original Toscano Bistro. His parents, Jon and Lucie Fath, ran the restaurant in Richmond from May 2003 until they retired from the business in October 2017. Max Fath helped out there but didn’t plan to stay in the restaurant industry. He got his real estate license instead.
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“I spiraled for a few years,” Fath said, as he plunged into various real estate properties while trying to figure out where he was headed in life. Eventually he settled down. He married Michael Hebert, who acquired the former Essex Hair and Body Salon, renaming it Vermont Hair Affair, around the same time Fath opened Toscano Bistro.
“It’s been amazing and very active,” Fath said of the last few months. “We did a lot in a short period of time.”
Taking the place of Jr’s Williston
Fath was already back in the restaurant business before opening Toscano Bistro. He was a general manager at Jr’s Williston, the Italian eatery that preceded Toscano Bistro in the Cottonwood Drive commercial development just east of Maple Tree Place.
That restaurant closed last year, and Fath realized he could retain much of the Jr’s Williston staff should he open his own restaurant quickly. He felt it was the right time but had a tough time finding financing. He opened the new Toscano Bistro thanks to money from private investors and the building’s landlord.
“Everything about this felt like it was meant to be,” according to Fath.
‘An active restaurant’
Fath truncated the dining room to fit just over 100 customers, less than the 150 that Jr’s Williston accommodated. (An outdoor patio with mountain views will provide seating for 30 diners in nicer weather.) He said he added half-wall dividers to create “this sense of privacy, intimacy,” while keeping enough open space to let the energy flow through the dining room.
“We’re busy, it’s lively,” almost noisy, according to Fath, “but not unbearable.”
“It’s definitely an active restaurant,” he said.
The dinner menu consists of main courses including chicken piccata, wild mushroom ravioli, pasta Bolognese, shrimp and scallops Fra diavolo, vegetable risotto and grilled beef tenderloin. The wine list offers Italian standards such as valpolicella and chianti, while the beer roster leans in a decidedly Vermont direction. Desserts range from cappuccino chocolate mousse to tiramisu. Toscano Bistro began serving lunch Feb. 4 and that menu is a pared-down version of the dinner menu plus sandwiches and wraps.
Fath’s parents serve in what he called a “mentorship/advising capacity,” and touches of the old Toscano Bistro are all over the new space. Much like the sign hanging in the dining room, the mirror behind the bar came from the original. Other ideas – complimentary bread from Red Hen Baking, fried calamari on the appetizer menu, stout silverware that gives diners confidence their knives and forks will hold up supremely during their meals – have also carried over from the restaurant’s first incarnation.
So too has the idea of a restaurant with tablecloths on the tables and a sense that a good meal shouldn’t be rushed. Toscano Bistro wants to provide people with a place to “sit and relax and linger and enjoy,” according to Fath.
“That’s really what Toscano is doing,” he said, “bringing back that slower pace of dining.”
Hours and information
Toscano Bistro, 32 Cottonwood Drive, Williston. 11:30 a.m.-3 p.m. (lunch), 4-8:30 p.m. (dinner) Tuesday-Saturday (dinner service until 9 p.m. Friday-Saturday). (802) 876-7184, www.toscanobistro.com
Contact Brent Hallenbeck at[email protected].
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