Homegrown in Camarillo
Family traditions carried down in cuisine
By Michelle Knight knight@theacorn.com

SERVING UP SUCCESS- Ottavio and Noella Belvedere, second and third from the left, are joined by their three children, Lenny, Ric and Julie. The Belvedere family owns Ottavio's Italian Restaurant, a landmark eatery in Old Town Camarillo, and Ric's Restaurant on Las Posas Road.

Success comes in family-size for the Belvederes.

Noella and Ottavio Belvedere opened a pizza kitchen in downtown Camarillo 38 years ago. A few years later they moved down the street and changed the name to Ottavio's Italian Restaurant.

A native of Sicily, Ottavio learned the restaurant business from watching his father in his bakery in Italy and later by working at his uncle's Canoga Park restaurant. The Camarillo restaurant still uses bread recipes from Ottavio's father for the pizza dough, Noella said.

She met and married Ottavio in Canada 50 years ago. They moved to the United States in 1959 with three small children- Julie, Lenny and Ric.

While growing up, the children worked all phases of the restaurant, earning 10 cents an hour, Noella said. She remembers Julie at age 9 seating customers, 8yearold Lenny bussing tables and 7-year-old Ric helping his dad make pizza in the kitchen.

Ottavio retired a few years ago, but Noella works part-time as the restaurant's bookkeeper.

"I think it's just hard work," Noella said of Ottavio's success. "We made everybody our family, and we do that still."

When Ric became an adult, he left the business, trying his hand at landscaping, car sales and construction. He even went to school for a drafting certificate. But after completing the course, his resume for the restaurant industry got more bites from prospective employers than did the one for drafting, he said.

"I knew where my value was," he said.

So 10 years ago, he returned to the business he knew so well, working as a chef for another restaurant.

He took his father up on an offer to be a partner in a new restaurant in 2003, and they opened Ric's Restaurant on Las Posas Road.

Ric said the two restaurants don't compete for customers, because each has a different client base. His restaurant appeals to business clientele and customers in their 30s and 40s, while Ottavio's attracts a family crowd, he said.

The two restaurants do, however, continue a family tradition that's ripened into an ingredient for success; now that a thirdgeneration of Belvederes are coming of age, a family member is almost always on hand to make customers feel at home, Ric said.