Francesco Nardini, 73, the second-generation owner of the venerable Italian restaurant Club Lago, died Thursday, Nov. 18, in his Chicago home of complications from a struggle with cancer, his family said.
In 1952, Italian immigrants Gus and Ida Lazzerini took over Club Lago on Superior and Orleans streets, and started serving Tuscan food to the printers and paper salesmen in the Chicago neighborhood then known as Smoky Hollow.
In 1980, as art galleries and hipsters transformed the area into River North, Mr. Nardini, the Lazzerinis’ son-in-law, left his career as an accountant and took over Club Lago. As the new owner, he updated the restaurant’s finances and expanded the menu.
“He made the menu a bit more sophisticated to reflect the times,” said his wife, Gloria. “My father’s menu was mainly spaghetti and meatballs. But my husband added dishes like veal scallopini and vegetarian pastas.”
Under Mr. Nardini’s management, Club Lago became a favorite hangout for Chicago politicians, judges, reporters and artists. In 1991, the restaurant was featured in the film “Mad Dog and Glory” with Robert DeNiro and Bill Murray.
In 2000, Mr. Nardini retired and passed the restaurant over to his two sons, Guido and GianCarlo.
At first, the Nardini brothers were unsure if their father approved of how they were running the beloved family business. Then, a few years ago, Mr. Nardini came to Club Lago on Christmas disguised in a Santa Claus suit and started joking with the customers and his two sons. At that moment, the sons knew they had won their father’s confidence.
“He would never tell us that we were doing a good job with the restaurant,” said Guido Nardini. “But when he came in that day, he turned a corner. He was joking and relaxed and we knew he trusted us.”
Mr. Nardini was born in 1937 in Barga, Italy, in northern Tuscany. After achieving the rank of lieutenant in the Alpine troops of Italy and receiving a degree in accounting from the University of Pisa, he moved to Chicago to be with his young girlfriend, Gloria.
“He knew me since I was a little girl, but only started paying attention after I turned 19,” his wife said.
They married in 1966 and moved to Elmhurst in 1970, where they raised their two sons.
For nearly a decade, Mr. Nardini worked as a CPA with Cook County Hospital and Nashua Corp. Then in 1980, Mr. Nardini lost his job, just as his father-in-law, Gus Lazzerini, was preparing to retire from Club Lago.
Lazzerini had bought the restaurant in 1952 from Charles Giometti and kept the name and nautical theme. Lago means lake in Italian.
When he took over the business, Mr. Nardini retained the 1950s style interior of red Naugahyde booths and black Formica tables, as well as the sailboat cutouts that decorated the walls.
With his accounting expertise, he modernized the restaurant’s outdated bookkeeping system, which was partly organized in shoe boxes, his wife said.
Mr. Nardini also used his cooking skills to update the menu with entrees that would satisfy the tastes of young professionals living and working in the neighborhood. His wife said he also did most of the cooking at home, too.
“He was a great cook,” she said. “When the chef went on vacation, he would take over the kitchen. That’s something that my sons can’t do.”
After his retirement in 2000, Mr. Nardini and his wife enjoyed travel and a new life in the city, only three blocks from the restaurant.
Club Lago hit a setback in March 2009 when an adjacent building’s chimney fell on the restaurant and destroyed its roof and kitchen. It closed to renovate, and reopened in October 2009.
Though the kitchen, dining room and bar were renovated, the Nardini brothers took pains to make the restaurant look exactly the same, retaining the old-school Italian feel that their father loved.
Mr. Nardini is also survived by a sister, Mariangela Danti, and four grandchildren.
Visitation is set for 2 to 9 p.m., with services at 7 p.m., Sunday in Belmont Funeral Home, 7120 W. Belmont Ave., Chicago.
Source – Chicago Tribune