ICYMI: 'It's A Dream Come True:' Villa Vittoria Reopens After 2016 Fire

BRICK, NJ — For years, Steve McCann and his sisters had held family gatherings at Villa Vittoria. Birthdays. Christmas dinners.

"This was a place we came every Christmas," the Washington, D.C. resident said as he stood in the renovated restaurant Friday afternoon. "When our mother died, we held her repast here. We love this place."

When the restaurant shut down in the summer of 2016 following a kitchen fire that ravaged the interior of the landmark Brick Township restaurant, "we were heartbroken," Kate McCann said.

On Friday the two were driving to another nearby restaurant where they were meeting up with their sister, Susan, and their mother's friend, Corrine O'Callaghan, for Corrine's birthday, when they rounded the curve on Old Hooper Avenue and discovered a welcome sign: "Villa Vittoria Open Now."

"I have goosebumps I'm so excited," Steve McCann said. All three siblings live out of state — Kate drove from New Hope, PA, and Susan from Nyack, NY — and to be among the first customers at the newly reopened restaurant was exciting, Steve said.

It's a feeling shared by Nelson Monroy and his partners — Olmeda Monroy, Jaco Seguro, Dago Segura, and Armando Bojaca — in the restaurant, which has been in Brick for decades. Monroy and his partners had comes to the United States in 1987 from Colombia after working on an Italian cruise ship for several years. They went to work for Guiseppe Salvatore at Villa Vittoria as busboys and worked their way up, and in 2004, purchased the restaurant from Salvatore.

"When I got there and saw the flames that day, I felt like our dream was shattered," Monroy said. "When we got the CO (certificate of occupancy) on Wednesday, it was a dream come true."

>> READ MORE: Brick Landmark Villa Vittoria Restaurant Damaged By Fire

In the nearly 14 months between, it has been an education in insurance, construction rules and many more things that the group had never faced previously.

"We learned a lot," Monroy said. "The town helped us a lot."

He said they also had a lot of help and guidance from Dean Langella, president of Restaurant Equipment Club of Brick, who helped them navigate much of the process.

"He was a very big help," Monroy said.

>> READ MORE: 'We Will Be Back,' Villa Vittoria Owner's Son Says After Brick Fire

"It's something not many people face," Langella said. "Villa Vittoria came back from a place that most restaurants and businesses don't ever come back from. It shows the strength and determination of the people and their families to overcome such incredible obstacles."

And what a comeback it is. The interior of the restaurant has been competely renovated and rearranged. A wall that partitioned a small room at the back of the dining area is gone. The bar, which was on one side, has been moved to the front of the restaurant. A porch area was widened slightly and pillars removed. There's an open, airy feel to the room, which is accented with two of Nelson Monroy's oil paintings and a gas fireplace in the back wall.

"The architect told us that if we wanted to make changes, now was the time," he said, adding the design incorporated suggestions from staff, from the family members who own the restaurant and from its customers. "It was a team effort."

Nelson Monroy wasn't able to salvage all of his oil paintings, he said, but the two that survived the fire hang prominently. "They had some smoke damage but because I painted them, I was able to restore them."

It's been a challenge. The partners' income was cut in half — they own Il Giardino in Forked River as well — but "that's all behind us now," Nelson Monroy said.

Gerard Esposito, the restaurant's longtime singer, returns to singing there on Friday nights, and Monroy said a number of its staff who have been working elsewhere will be returning to Villa Vittoria to work.

"It's so great to have them back," Corrine O'Callaghan said as she and Susan McCann arrived for Corrine's birthday meal. "It's my favorite place."

Photos by Karen Wall