Getting It Right: D’Avanzo’s Spend Years Preparing For Grand Opening on Tuesday in TD
By Tom Peterson
The Dalles, Ore., Aug. 28, 2026 — For the past month, Shannon D’Avanzo has been doing something that might seem a little unusual for the owner of a restaurant that hasn’t officially opened yet.
She’s been running it.
Shannon and Phil D’Avanzo
Inside the former Last Stop Saloon at 209 E. Second St., cooks have been learning recipes.
Servers have been learning the story behind the food, and customers have been coming through the doors during a series of soft openings designed to test just about everything.
How much sauce needs to be made? How many people might walk through the door in four hours? Can a kitchen built around a 42-seat restaurant in Goldendale suddenly handle a dining room capable of seating close to 150?
And, most importantly to D’Avanzo, can the plate of pasta that comes out of the kitchen Tuesday taste just as good as the one served Saturday night?
“We’ve done so much training, which I feel really good about,” D’Avanzo said. “We’ve had an entire month, soft openings — three days here, two days here, a lot of practice runs.”
On Tuesday, Sept. 1, the practice runs end.
D’Avanzo’s will officially open its new The Dalles restaurant, bringing Phil and Shannon D’Avanzo’s Goldendale Italian restaurant across the Columbia River and into a much larger downtown space.
Shannon D'Avanzo, left, and Phil D’Avanzo, right, take a selfie with staff as they work their way toward a new restaurant and a grand opening in The Dalles on Tuesday, Sept. 1.
It is an opening that has generated plenty of anticipation among people looking for a sit-down Italian meal in The Dalles.
That anticipation was evident even during the interview on Friday, when a gentleman walked through the door looking for a menu. He told D’Avanzo he had missed having an Italian restaurant in town and was looking forward to the opening. Asked about his favorite Italian meal, he didn't hesitate long: spaghetti and meatballs — “you can’t go wrong,” he said.
And while some Italian-inspired food can be found locally, D’Avanzo’s is taking a different path, building its menu around the traditional sit-down pasta dinner: lasagna, spaghetti and meatballs, bolognese, fettuccine Alfredo and creamy pesto.
A bigger table
Shannon said they rebuilt the entire kitchen with an eye toward efficiency, quality and cleanliness with the ultimate goal of delivering a delicious plate within 15 minutes.
The move began, in part, because Shannon D’Avanzo already knew the building.
Her daughter plays soccer in The Dalles, and the family had visited Scooper McQuade’s ice cream shop after games.
“I was thinking this place is so cute,” she recalled. “I just loved it.”
When she learned the space was available, she contacted building owner Todd Carpenter.
Carpenter had apparently been thinking along similar lines.
“He’s said ‘Well actually, I’ve always thought this Last Stop would be a great Italian restaurant,’” D’Avanzo said.
Carpenter signed a lease with Phil and Shannon, and the couple took over the space on Aug. 1.
But they didn't simply change the sign and start serving spaghetti.
The size difference alone demanded another approach.
Their Goldendale restaurant, now in its fourth year, seats about 42. The Dalles location can accommodate close to 150. Instead of the roughly dozen employees the D’Avanzos have between their Goldendale restaurant and another food operation there, they have hired about 16 people for The Dalles location.
D’Avanzo held a hiring event in mid-July and then went to work teaching.
She has spent much of August in the kitchen alongside the new crew, teaching prep cooks her recipes and line cooks the processes that have been developed during four years of operating D’Avanzo’s in Goldendale.
Every kitchen employee hired for the new restaurant came with previous kitchen experience, she said.
The goal now is to take that experience and teach them the D’Avanzo way.
That means more than knowing how to make Alfredo sauce.
It means understanding how the kitchen moves, how dishes are assembled and how to get meals to tables quickly without sacrificing consistency.
D’Avanzo said the restaurant aims to get food out in about 15 minutes.
“I like to work and be in the kitchen,” she said.
That is where the personalities of the husband-and-wife team complement one another.
Shannon gravitates toward recipes, organization, efficiency and problem-solving. Phil is the front-of-the-house guy — the one more likely to be visiting with customers and telling stories about the family.
“He likes to talk to people,” Shannon said.
Phil D’Avanzo, on right, with patrons in mid- August.
An Italian family story
The name on the door is more than branding.
Phil D’Avanzo’s father was born in Italy and came to the United States in the 1950s. His grandfather was a baker, and the family operated a pizza restaurant in Portland during the 1970s.
The restaurant business didn't immediately pass from one generation to another, however.
Shannon spent 16 years working in grocery businesses before opening the Goldendale restaurant about four years ago. She and Phil have also operated auto-detailing businesses together.
Managing people, she discovered, was one of her strengths.
So was solving problems.
Both skills turned out to be particularly useful in a restaurant.
“Something comes up every day,” she said.
An employee calls in. A food order doesn't arrive. An ingredient runs out. Something breaks.
Her job is to solve it and keep the operation moving.
Shannon also developed the recipes that became the foundation of D’Avanzo’s.
The couple originally settled on Italian food partly because of Phil's family history and partly because they saw something missing in Goldendale.
“There wasn’t an Italian restaurant in Goldendale,” she said.
Four years later, they saw an opportunity to bring that food to The Dalles.
Start with the sauce
Spaghetti Bolognese
D’Avanzo describes the menu as simple.
That's intentional.
Rather than launch with dozens of entrées, the restaurant is concentrating on a core group of dishes its kitchen can make well and make consistently.
“We want to keep it simple so that we can make sure it is high quality and it is consistent,” she said.
The sauces are made in-house.
The bolognese begins with the restaurant's marinara before beef, sausage and other ingredients are added. The meat sauce is slow-simmered for about two hours and then becomes part of dishes including D’Avanzo’s four-layer lasagna.
Alfredo sauce is also made from scratch.
Fresh pasta is made for the restaurant by an outside supplier, another example of Shannon's particular approach to ingredients. She said she works with about five suppliers rather than relying on a single food distributor for everything.
“I'm very particular,” she said.
Creamy Pesto
The opening menu includes fettuccine Alfredo for $18, D’Avanzo’s lasagna for $22, spaghetti and a half-pound meatball for $17, spaghetti bolognese for $16, creamy pesto for $19 and a spicy vodka bolognese for $18.
D’Avanzo’s also offers gluten-free pasta for all of its pasta dishes except lasagna for an additional $3, and Shannon said both the bolognese and Alfredo sauces are gluten-free.
There is also something called “All the Things.”
It is part of the restaurant's bread service: three baguettes accompanied by herbed butter, burrata, bruschetta, roasted garlic and oil and vinegar.
Then there are the meatballs.
Each weighs a half-pound.
The Meatball Al Forno combines local beef and Italian sausage with Parmesan, parsley and garlic, served with pomodoro sauce, baguette and herbed butter. A pesto version adds whipped pesto ricotta.
Chicken Parmesan and eggplant Parmesan aren't on the regular opening menu. D’Avanzo said dishes such as those have been offered as specials in Goldendale and will eventually make appearances in The Dalles.
That's part of the plan: Get the foundation right first. Add to it later.
Practice before opening day
Phil A’Vanzo leads a training day with staff in preparation for opening.
That philosophy explains the unusual month leading up to Tuesday's grand opening.
The restaurant began serving some customers in early August rather than waiting until Sept. 1 to discover what happens when the dining room fills.
Thursday’s soft opening drew more than 100 people, D’Avanzo estimated.
Those customers have essentially helped the restaurant rehearse.
D’Avanzo and her crew have been watching how long people stay, how many large parties arrive, how much food must be prepared and how the kitchen handles the volume.
Large families have already been a significant part of the business.
That's exactly what the D’Avanzos want.
The restaurant has a children's menu with spaghetti and meat sauce, spaghetti and marinara, pasta Alfredo, chicken Alfredo, cheese ravioli and butter noodles.
There is also a full bar, with Italian-inspired and specialty cocktails including an Amalfi Coconut Margarita, Sicilian Mule, Tuscan Sunset and Rosemary Paloma. The D’Avanzos have been tasting Italian and local wines as they develop the wine list.
But the larger vision isn't simply lunch and dinner service.
Catering has become a significant part of the D’Avanzos' business, and Shannon said they are already accepting catering reservations in The Dalles for weddings and other events, including bookings into next year.
The restaurant also offers family-sized take-and-bake versions of many pasta dishes — an option aimed at people who want to bring dinner home rather than dine in.
Why do it?
There is an easier way to make a living.
Shannon D’Avanzo knows that.
Running a restaurant means long hours, staffing problems, food deliveries, prep work, inventory, recipes, customers and the nightly pressure of making sure dozens — and potentially hundreds — of plates leave the kitchen the way they're supposed to.
So during the interview, she was asked the obvious question.
Why do it?
“I really like feeding people,” she said. “It’s something I'm passionate about.”
For D’Avanzo, food is connected to the moments when people gather.
A birthday.
An anniversary.
A wedding.
A funeral.
A family dinner where several generations end up around the same table.
When the kitchen is chaotic and the work is piling up, she said seeing people enjoying something she created provides the answer.
“It makes it all worth it,” D’Avanzo said. “All the hard work and the chaos in the kitchen, everything comes together and it's like, OK, this is why we're doing it.”
People are happy. They're eating together.
“They're enjoying it,” she said. “We're creating a lifetime memory for them.”
Beginning Tuesday, Shannon and Phil D’Avanzo will have a much bigger dining room in which to make those memories.
D’Avanzo’s, 209 E. Second St., The Dalles, opens Tuesday, Sept. 1. Hours are 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday and 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Friday and Saturday. The restaurant is closed Sunday and Monday. For reservations and catering information, call 541-769-0025.
