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Mondo’s Tomato Pie to reopen

By Gigi Wood

It may open under a new name, but Mondo’s Tomato Pie will see another day.

Filled with 28 inches of flood water last month, the restaurant lost somewhere between $600,000 and $700,000 of kitchen equipment alone.

“We never got it in ’93, so we were quite shocked when all of the sudden we confronted it in ’08,” says Jim Mondanaro, owner of Mondo’s and several restaurants in the area.

The business did not have flood insurance, which would have only paid for the depreciated value of the equipment, not replacement costs, he says. The kitchen equipment’s depreciated value was about $75,000, he adds.

A new restaurant will open at 516 Second Ave. in Coralville by about Nov. 1. He says the timeline is not overly optimistic.

“Here we are at August; that (Nov. 1) is 90 days away,” he says. “It’s not like we’re building a new building.”

Meanwhile, he is sketching out themes for the restaurant.

“There are about three different concepts that we’re toying around with right now,” Mondanaro says. “And we’re just not settled in on exactly which way we’re going to go with it. It could be new; you can bet there will be Mondo’s famous dishes that will reemerge. But there will also be changes on the menu to stay with the ever-changing times.”

Work has already started on design concepts and floor plans.

“It could either be Mondo’s, Mondanaro’s, it could be Kinnick’s or it could be something in the Pacific Rim-type setting where it becomes like P.F. Chang’s on steroids,” he says. “We just don’t know exactly for sure how it will go.”

About 75 people worked at Mondo’s Tomato Pie before the flood. About 20 were hired at other restaurants owned by Mondanaro.

This story originally appeared in the Corridor Business Journal.