By Thane Grauel

WESTPORT — Tutti’s Ristorante, with its aroma of garlicky tomato sauce, pasta, seafood and more, has been a culinary mainstay in Saugatuck for 20 years.

But with possible large-scale redevelopment of the area known as the Hamlet at Saugatuck, it appears the lease will not be renewed. Maria Funicello said she and her husband, Pasquale, are not sure if they’d want to move and start over again.

“I’m 61, Pasquale’s 66,” she said on a recent Saturday afternoon, between taking dinner reservations and seating customers at the eatery with Riverside Avenue in front and the Black Duck tavern behind.

The building, 601 Riverside Ave., is one of several to be razed under the current version of the sweeping plan that would include a hotel, docks, restaurants, and retail and residential spaces. Some of the new buildings would be up to five-stories tall.

The landlord for Tutti’s is Robert Sloat, who also owns the Black Duck parcel (which is included in the proposed rezoning but, the applicants have said, not part of the redevelopment). Sloat also owns the funky looking five-story, 1960s-era office building at 21 Charles St.

That office building would get a major face lift under the plan, which is just beginning to be discussed by the town’s land-use and other bodies.

Sloat could not be reached for comment.

Maria Funicello said the restaurateurs are very happy with their location in Westport, and with their customers, who were very kind to Tutti’s during the pandemic lockdown.

She feels change in Saugatuck is inevitable.

“They’re gonna redo this whole section,” she said. “We’ll take it one day at a time.”

The Funicellos live in the Strawberry Hill area of Norwalk, a short drive south from Saugatuck.

Tutti’s is the second restaurant the couple has opened in town. They previously founded Angelina’s Trattoria on Post Road East in the 1980s. That restaurant is in the same plaza as the old Barnes & Noble, and where an Amazon Fresh grocery store is coming. And for those with long memories, where a Waldbaum’s supermarket and the Post Cinema once called home.

Asked if they’d consider another spot for Tutti’s, Maria Funicello wasn’t sure.

“They came to talk to us,” she said of the Hamlet team. “They’re very nice. They offered that they would work with us and move us.”

“The came, they sat,” she said. “They showed us the plans, beautiful plans. They offered to move us in the meantime, if they had a place to move us.”

“It’s our age more than anything,” Maria Funicello said of starting over again.

“Progress is progress, and if they make it look like the Gault did, it’s going to be beautiful,” she said of the redevelopment just north on Riverside Avenue, between the Cribari Bridge and the Interstate 95 overpass.

“I love it here,” she said of Saugatuck. “Our customers, it’s very heartfelt. Westport is good. Even our landlord has been good to us through all this mess we’ve been through.”

Thane Grauel, executive editor, grew up in Westport and has been a journalist in Fairfield County and beyond more than three decades. Reach him at editor@westportjournal.com. Learn more about us here.