What Was The Name Of That Place????

*Scratching Head* Does that ever happen to you? A once familiar place from your past, maybe even a treasured place, comes up in memory, in image, in your mind, but you can't, for the life of you, remember the name of it? Well, this happened to me just last week. 

"Now, if I could just remember the name...Il Mulino...no, that's not it, Il Trattoria, nope, not even present in Dallas in a google search. I can see it, the gondola, the palm reader, who greeted you with a smile upon entry, the silver bread boxes, the roving band of of musicians, the staff who brought you unending quantities of bread. Hmm.  What is the name of that restaurant!!??  Mom and Dad took me there as a youngish person and I fell quite fully entranced with it, my husband and I went back, much later as newlyweds..."

This wasn't a place that we frequented, all THAT often, but it sure made an impression on me, and not being able to recall the name of it has driven me nuts for about a week!!!  Enter google and the return of my memory!!!  Volia!!!!  Il Sorento, a classic Dallas Italian restaurant. This gem opened in 1950 and closed in 2003. Its vibrant owner passed in 2014. Why do I post about it? Well, I guess I was overjoyed today, that the name randomly, returned to me. Poof, just like that, with a quick search and the Dallas Morning News, I learned this about the owner...

What a fascinating life! What a fun little trip down memory lane. What a joy it was to visit that restaurant and get to enjoy some good food and a bit of magic. With the decor and the ambiance that Mr. Messina strove so hard to create, it made this young girl feel as though she had been whisked away, magically, to another land. Such fun!

That's kind of how it goes around here...so much change, so much progress. Old, historic, or charming, these are the adjectives that sometimes give way to new, progress and construction. Here's three cheers to google, for being able to keep a record of so very many things, and those of us that can remember places of long ago.

Note, we happen to LOVE progress, but we also happen to LOVE history, even some personal history, too! That's it, isn't it, to really know a city, a community, you must know and love some of its past, while appreciating its progress and change, too!

Check out some of the images I found of Il Sorento in a google image search. See if they bring back any memories for you!