The iconic 800 Building at 800 S. Fourth St., under renovation to become the 800 Tower City Apartments after several years of creeping desuetude, will also have an Italian restaurant, to be called Bar Vetti. It will be operated by Ryan Rogers of Feast BBQ and Royals Hot Chicken and his partner, Andrew McCabe, who is currently the chef at Royals.
The downtown apartment building is undergoing an $11 million renovation project to spiff up what was once one of the prime addresses in the city.
Bar Vetti and will be on the first floor, with additional outdoor seating. Breakfast and lunch will be fast-casual style with counter ordering. Dinner, however, will offer table service, with wood-fired pizzas, house-made pastas, seasonally selected entrees and small plates, according to a news release. Along with the usual offerings, the full bar will also have Italian apéritifs and digestifs.
Rogers said he hopes to create a very Italian style to his bar/restaurant, making it into, as he said in his press release, “the third space other than home and work where people stop by in the morning for an espresso, often grab lunch, and return again after work for an apéritif and maybe dinner with their neighbors and friends.”
McCabe will be chef/owner of Bar Vetti. He has worked at Proof on Main and Harvest in Louisville and at several Chicago restaurants.
Bar Vetti is named after the House of Vettii, one of Pompeii’s most famous homes, whose ornate splendor was revealed in excavations 2000 years after being buried in the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD.
