2006 was a pivotal year for West Chester — the year Limoncello Ristorante arrived!
From “Family Owned & Operated.”
Frank Mingrino was always fated to run a restaurant. “My mother and her sister opened up Porta Rosa, our family’s first restaurant, in Havertown in 1996,” he remembers. It was a family affair from the get-go. His brother Paul got his first executive chef experience there, after graduating from culinary school, and his cousin Lisa was the GM. Although Frank was younger, he and his sister Dina still had their responsibilities. “I waited tables there while I was at restaurant school, and my sister would hostess,” he says.
But, there’s only so much room for growth in a family-owned restaurant, and when Frank graduated from school, he knew he wanted to expand the family business. “We came to West Chester in 2006, and we fell in love with this town,” he says. “The foot traffic, the ambiance, the patio dining — we knew it was perfect.”
The family feeling extends to their employees, who routinely comment on it when interviewed for this magazine. Patrick Barrenchea, when nominated for Bartender of the Month in our November 2016 issue, said, “Everyone who comes to work here becomes part of the Limoncello family.”
Of course, having so many family members working together has its ups and downs. “I think everyone in my family, we have a passion for this,” Frank says. “We have our differences, and we butt heads, but at the end of the day, we always make peace — we’re family.”
