Palatine Pizza & Pasta opening this summer

The owner of the Century Plaza Center strip mall is opening a new restaurant in the center called Palatine Pizza & Pasta, filling a storefront that has been vacant for more than five years.

Owner Manny Rafidia said the new restaurant, at 375 W. Northwest Hwy., will be similar to another restaurant he owns called Pop's Pizza & Sports Bar in Roselle, but it will feature a key innovation - a wood-burning pizza oven.

"It will be a little different from everybody else," Rafidia said.

The restaurant will also serve what Rafidia described to the village plan commission as high-end northern Italian-style pasta.

The restaurant will occupy a storefront most recently used by True Woods Cabinetry.

The Palatine village council unanimously approved Rafidia's plan to open the new restaurant at its meeting Monday night.

According to village documents, the restaurant will be open for lunch and dinner seven days a week from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. Sundays through Thursdays and until midnight on Friday and Saturday.

Palatine Pizza & Pasta will join El Torero as the center's only two restaurants. Despite both businesses having similar peak hours, Palatine Director of Planning and Zoning Ben Vyverberg said he isn't concerned the center's parking lot will be overwhelmed.

"There's a lot of businesses in this center that close at 5 p.m., so staff doesn't have concern in regard to the parking configuration," Vyverberg said.

Rafidia has owned Century Plaza since 1996 and said it has been hard getting tenants in recent years because people are more afraid to take risks on businesses, he said.

"Hopefully, me coming in as the owner of the shopping center and the owner of the restaurant will encourage other tenants to lease space," Rafida said.

Rafidia added he anticipates being ready to open in early August.