GOOD TASTE
A Slice of Italy

Find fast, affordable and lighter Italian fare at Cafe Lazio in Hoover
By Mary Ellen Stancill Photo by Beau Gustafson 

Upon opening our menus at Café Lazio, my husband and I almost simultaneously exclaimed, “This place is pretty cheap,” words we hadn’t said when dining out in quite awhile.

Later, when I mentioned this to Café Lazio’s owner Charlie Vatella, he proudly told me that you can eat lunch for less than a couple of gallons of gas, adding, “You can’t do that many places.” Café Lazio opened in Hoover’s Patton Creek Shopping Center in October 2007 but the Vatellas certainly aren’t new to the Birmingham restaurant business. Sixteen years ago, Charlie Vatella moved his family from New York to Birmingham and opened Petruccelli’s Italian Restaurant in Inverness.

While Petruccelli’s is still a family favorite, Vatella saw the demand for a lighter, less-expensive Italian dining option and opened Café Lazio.

The menu offers traditional Italian hand-tossed pizzas, flat bread sandwiches, calzones, strombolies, pastas and salads with a few heartier entrée options as well. The calzones, strombolies and sandwiches come with your choice of more American sides: chips, fruit or pasta salad.

As he predicted, Vatella says the lighter, less-expensive options - calzones, sandwiches and salads - are the best sellers with the vast majority costing between $5 and $7.

With live music on Thursday and different beer, wine and pizza specials every other night of the week, a full bar and pizza by the slice starting at $2.75, Café Lazio is an easy fit for the after work crowd or the after Little League crowd.

Sit outside on one of two patios, at a cozy booth indoors or at the bar and watch the chefs toss and stretch your dough in the exposed kitchen. Best of all, when you’re finished with your entrée, there’ll be money left in your pocket for a slice of New York cheesecake or the hard-to-resist cannoli.

Café Lazio is open for lunch and dinner daily and is located at 181 Main St., Suite 241 in the Patton Creek Shopping Center in Hoover. Visit cafelazio.net or call 403-7480 for more info and to view their dinein and to go menus.

 
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