Lowellville restaurant reopens under new ownership with original chef

LOWELLVILLE, Ohio (WKBN) – A popular Lowellville restaurant reopened earlier this month — this time, with a new owner.

Mike Virgalitte has been living next door to The Station Grille at Melillo’s for four years.

“This building has so much history. Everybody, everybody in the community has a story or many stories of something happening here,” he said.

Virgalitte says since then, he’s dreamed about what he would do if he got to run the place one day. This year, that dream came true.

Under previous owners, the restaurant closed in January.

“When it shut down, everyone was kind of devastated, even me,” Virgalitte said.

He took ownership in April and after three months of renovations, the restaurant reopened at the beginning of this month.

While renovating the space, he wanted to bring back some of the restaurant’s original staff.

“We’ve got Dave, our bartender that’s been here forever, everybody knows him, he’s great. We’ve got Johnny, everybody knows his food, everybody looks forward to his food,” Virgalitte said.

John Torrento — “Chef Johnny,” as they call him — was the restaurant’s original chef. He’s returned and created the new menu for the updated restaurant.

“Everything has to be cut fresh and made fresh,” Torrento said.

He says he doesn’t use any frozen food and gets there early every morning to make everything from scratch.

“I mean, people love this place and just having the chance and the opportunity, to even have a chance to renovate this place as a project is a dream come true, really,” Virgalitte said.

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