“I stupidly bought it,” Tagliapietra says of that fateful decision. Tagliapietra’s favorite local cafe closed down, and he felt compelled to purchase it. Tagliapietra attended the Gateway Technical College criminal justice program – “That applied really effectively to restaurants,” he notes sarcastically – and was in the final interview process with the Kenosha Police Department, ready to start his career in law enforcement.īut then fate intervened. “While there, some Kenosha officers talked me into trying to become a police officer,” he recalled. It was while working in the emergency room at the Kenosha hospital downtown that Tagliapietra was guided to a potential career in law enforcement. Translated literally from its Italian roots, ‘Tagliapietra’ means ‘cut stone.’ Jandel, Rhyen and Riki Tagliapietra on a trip to Italy. Tagliapietra attended McKinley Elementary School and McKinley Middle School before being part of one of Indian Trail High School and Academy’s first full graduating classes, in 2003. And then all of a sudden, later as an adult, I was like, ‘Man, onions are dope,’ and everything changed.” “When I was a kid, I didn’t eat anything that exciting. ![]() “I think it took me way longer,” Tagliapietra said. “We just lived in kind of a standard Kenosha Italian neighborhood,” Tagliapietra said.Īnd though you may assume his love of food was instilled at a young age, being Italian and all, Tagliapietra says he really didn’t become some type of “foodie” while growing up. If not for one fateful decision, Riki Tagliapietra would be a police officer.īorn in Kenosha and raised in the Holy Rosary neighborhood, Tagliapietra – whose grandfather emigrated here from Italy – says his family’s upbringing was similar to many other Italian families in Kenosha. We do such a different menu here than we do as a truck.”įor all his efforts over the years to make Kenosha a special culinary city, and to celebrate Cut Stone’s one-year anniversary, Riki Tagliapietra has been named this week’s Kenoshan of the Week. “We’d just love to get people to come to the door. “We have people who only know us here (at Cut Stone) and people who only know us as a truck. “We have two sets of customers,” Riki said. For more information, visit Cut Stone’s website or its Facebook page. Tuesdays feature a special calzone menu, while Wednesdays feature a scratch-made pasta special. With its popularity growing, the Tagliapietras have expanded Cut Stone’s hours to four nights per week, Tuesdays through Fridays, from 4:30 to 9 p.m. Now, the Tagliapietras are hoping to make sure their Il Marzocco customer base is eager to come into Cut Stone, and vice versa. Riki and Jandel Tagliapietra, with their daughter, Rhyen, run the food truck Il Marzocco by serving from an old fire truck, “Engine 4.” More commonly known around town as “Engine 4,” since the Tagliapietras use an old fire truck to deliver their offerings, Il Marzocco preceded Cut Stone. He writes the popular “Kenosha Eats” column for, in which he has quite a way about turning phrases to describe the city’s many unique culinary offerings.Ĭut Stone, which marked its one-year anniversary just last week after opening in November 2022, is Riki and Jandel’s brick-and-mortar complement to their popular food truck, Il Marzocco. If anyone has ever fit the definition of “foodie,” it’s Riki Tagliapietra, and he’s been connected to Kenosha’s fantastic food scene for years. A, as he and Jandel prepared for opening that evening. “We knew if we put ‘Tagliapietra’ on the door, nobody was ever going to be able to find us,” Riki said with a laugh during an interview this week at the restaurant, located at 5925 Sixth Ave. “But it literally translates to ‘cut stone.’”Īnd there’s your perfect restaurant name and the reason why Riki and Jandel’s downtown restaurant, Cut Stone (Taglia = Cut, Pietra = Stone), is called what it is. “‘Tagliapietra’ is the name they gave to the masons who built the City of Venice,” Riki says. While on a trip to Venice, Italy, Riki and his wife, Jandel, did a little research on the Italian heritage of Riki’s last name – which, by the way, rolls off the tongue beautifully. For Kenosha native Riki Tagliapietra, the answer is a restaurant.
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