Costa’s Ristorante a dining destination in northwest Illinois for over 30 years

The menu at Saro Costa’s restaurant may be well-rounded, but it didn’t get that way by cutting corners.

That’s because when you sit down at Costa’s Pizzeria and Ristorante in Byron, you’d be hard-pressed not to find something you’ll like. While Italian fare is his bread and butter (and that bread’s made from scratch, he’s proud to say), he’s got a diverse menu the whole family can enjoy.

That idea of offering something for the whole family is important to Costa, because it’s family he owes his success too — the family who instilled in him a love of cooking and the value of hard work, the family he’s built with his wife Robin, and the families who’ve helped make Costa’s restaurant a community staple for more than three decades.

Family is all around him at the restaurant, from the photos that occupy a place of pride on the walls to the kitchen where he carries on generations of family traditions, mixed in with his own tried-and-true techniques.

It’s been a long journey for Costa, from shining shoes to owning a restaurant, but he’s proud to say he didn’t take any shortcuts to get there.

“I won’t cut corners just to make a buck,” he said.

Much of his menu is made in-house and from scratch, and the pastas, pizzas and other dishes that customers enjoy today haven’t changed since Saro opened for business in 1991.

It’s that kind of respect for tradition and taste that’s kept customers coming back for more, and, he says, sets Costa’s apart from other restaurants.

“We’re one of the few … left that truly go out of their way to make sure that the product we put out on the table is superior, in my opinion,” Costa said. “We don’t buy anything pre-canned or anything like that. I’ve been doing it like that for 33 years, where many people in my position, after so many years, struggle. I stick to my old roots, and do things the way my mom, grandmother and dad do it, the way it should be done.”

Breads, noodles and olive oils are all made in-house, and Italian beef is both roasted and sliced fresh onsite. Even the seemingly little things are a big draw for customers. Costa said some customers simply stop in for a salad and loaves of bread.

“It’s a lost art,” Costa said. “Places like ours don’t make their own bread anymore. It’s a lot of work,” and it makes great French toast, too, he adds.

Pastas are Costa’s specialty, with lasagna the biggest seller; it’s a five-layer combination of Italian sausage, ground beef and a blend of different cheeses. Other Italian dishes on the menu include spaghetti (including a variety tossed in fresh garlic and olive oil), ravioli, tortellini, mostaccioli and fettuccine alfredo , as well as a scampi Mediterranean, eggplant parmigiana pasta, and cannelloni and manicotti tubes.

Pizzas come in both regular and deep dish varieties, available with a variety of toppings. Some specialties include a chicken alfredo pizza, an Italian beef “sandwizza,” and a “mostapizza” with stuffed mostaccioli.

The menu isn’t all Italian, though. Diners can also enjoy steaks, seafood, burgers and chicken sandwiches.

“It’s a very diverse menu,” Costa said. “Anyone can come in here and have dinner. It’s a full menu. You can’t leave here and say ‘there wasn’t anything there for me to eat.’ There’s a little bit of everything. We have steaks, we have seafood, we have chicken dishes, we have many other options, it’s not all just Italian.”

Costa’s family emigrated to Rockford from Messina, on the Italian island of Sicily, in 1966. Saro was born shortly after they came to America, and developed a passion for hard work as a child. He shined shoes at Palace Shoe Service in downtown Rockford as a teenager before working for a cousin at a pizzeria in town, where he developed his true niche.

“I went to go work with my cousin at a pizzeria, and seeing how fun it was doing that, little by little grew into becoming a chef,” Costa said. “I think it’s every kid’s dream that when you’re working for somebody and you see what they’re doing, especially when they are successful, you always get that itch to know that if I can do it for him, I can do it for myself. That, and realizing, too, how hard they work to get where they’re at.”

Costa came to Byron in 1991 and opened a restaurant downtown before moving to his current location on state Route 2 in 2001, after the building he was renting ran into air conditioning problems. With business picking up, and faced with the prospect of repair delays, he decided the time was right to find a place of his own. When he found it, he knew then it was the right fit — he pulled the for sale sign out of the ground and was on his way to owning his own building.

The location also helped draw more traffic, sitting along the main highway between Dixon and Rockford.

“I thought I was okay with that little storefront downtown, but we kept on getting busier and busier and just basically outgrew it,” Costa said. “If I had the opportunity to buy that, I’d probably still be down there, but I have no regrets.”

Saro enjoys keeping busy in the kitchen, but he always finds time to pull away from the culinary commotion to meet and greet customers who come to enjoy the meals that he and his crew make with pride.

“With a lot of restaurants, it’s starting to be a rarity that they make 30, 40, 50 years,” Costa said. “There are many different challenges in the industry, and a lot of people don’t have the fortitude to work through it. I feel that accomplishing that is great, and what I feel proud of the most is being able to sustain it for 33 years. It’s knowing that after all of these years, I take a lot of pride in it.”