By Pam George
On Dec. 16, 1996, Lisa and Carl Georigi had a 2-year-old son, and Lisa was eight months pregnant with their daughter. But on that day, the couple also gave birth to the first of a brood of businesses. Eclipse Bistro debuted in a former fried chicken restaurant on the edge of Little Italy.
Nearly 30 years later, Eclipse is the flagship restaurant in Platinum Dining Group’s collection. Siblings include RedFire Grill & Steakhouse (formerly Dome) in Hockessin, Capers & Lemons in Greenville, Taverna in Newark and Talleyville, El Camino Mexican Kitchen in Talleyville, and Hearth Kitchen in Kennett Square.
Eclipse remains the couple’s “baby.” “It’s where we started,” Lisa says. “It’s just a special place.”
Bryan Jariwala never worked at Eclipse, but he would agree. “This place has such a unique history and such a place in all our hearts,” says Jariwala, a director of operations, who began his career as a Dome barback. “It all started within these four walls.”
Seizing An Opportunity
The Georigis met in 1992 when Carl managed Café Bellissimo near Price’s Corner, where Lisa frequently dined. At the time, Lisa handled interior design for her father, Joseph Fragomele, the owner of Colonial Construction, and her skill would prove to be an asset to Platinum Dining.
Carl, a New Jersey native, had been in the hospitality business since age 16, and by the time he was 23, he managed Sfuzzi’s Philadelphia location. Although Carl had earned a degree from LaSalle University, he was entrenched in the restaurant world. Before opening Eclipse, he worked at the University of Delaware’s Blue & Gold Club.
On his days off, the couple scouted locations for a restaurant. They looked at what some remember as Cynthia’s, which shared building space with Michael Christopher Salon & Day Spa and Stuart Kingston. The structure was razed to make room for 2000 Pennsylvania Avenue.
The Georigis also toured the site of a former Italian restaurant, now Mexican Post, as well as the 3,000-square-foot Catholic Charities building. Then one day a “For Lease” sign in a Little Italy window caught Carl’s eye. It was the former home of Miz Walt’s.
His father-in-law was dubious. The 1,700-square-foot space was too small to be a restaurant, he maintained. To convince “Pop,” Carl drew the layout on graph paper one evening and woke Fragomele at midnight to show him the plans. He needed his family’s support.
“We were young and didn’t have any money,” Carl explains. “We leaned heavily on Lisa’s dad.”
From Fried Chicken to Foie Gras
The layout wasn’t the only issue. The walk-in, which had been turned off, was full of one-year-old chickens. “It was nasty,” Carl says. Nevertheless, he signed the lease and gave his 90-day notice to UD. For the next three months, he worked full time at the Blue & Gold Club then went to the restaurant, where he often stayed until 2 a.m.
“We had no idea if it would work,” Carl acknowledges. “I was 29 years old, and we were scared as hell. There was no parachute.”
Today, developers woo restaurateurs with deals to create activities for residents. That wasn’t the case in the mid-1990s.
But Carl was hungry for the opportunity, and his hand was steady as he drew the layout on the floor in chalk. Lisa handled the décor, which included peach-hued vinyl floors, green fabric chairs and white tablecloths. They brought window boxes from their Trolley Square home.
In 1996, most of the dining activity was in Trolley Square. Toscana, the Silk Purse, Black Trumpet, Constantinou’s House of Beef and Kid Shelleen’s Charcoal House & Saloon were alive and well. However, Walter’s Steakhouse and Luigi Vitrone’s Pastabilities were elevating Little Italy. So, there was hope.
Patrick D’Amico, who’d been working at Ristorante Carruci in Wawaset, was the Georigis’ first hire. The Culinary Institute of America graduate rose to local fame at Positano, formerly in The Devon.
News Journal critic Al Mascitti was impressed with D’Amico’s cobia in a reduced plum wine sauce, quail stuffed with foie gras, raw oysters with carpaccio., and a dessert tower of white and dark chocolate. “Such creations promise that Eclipse will continue to rise — and its neighborhood will rise with it,” Mascitti wrote.
Advertising taglines promised that Eclipse was “Shining Nightly,” and there was a yellow moon behind the bar. However, the name Eclipse referred to the restaurant’s ability to surpass the competition — not to become obscured. From the start, the team hit the mark.
A Few Good Men
D’Amico, who earned a James Beard Award nomination, stayed with Eclipse for eight years. Meanwhile, Carl’s brother, Nick, joined the team in the fall of 1997. After getting his college degree, Nick entered Marriott’s training program. The restaurant world fascinated him. The hotel industry? Not so much.
Carl offered him a job as a server. “He sat me down and said, ‘You’re an employee here, and you’re going to be treated as such,’” Nick recalls. “I respected the hell out of that.”
The polished Eclipse staff impressed him. “We were tight. We were professionals. We shared a love of food and wine,” Nick says.
In 1999, News Journal reporter Eric Ruth wrote that maître d’ Nick Georigi “dotes and fusses over guests like a mother hen.” The bartender, meanwhile, “shakes up martinis so cold they shiver.”
Servers and bartenders wore black pants, a crisp white shirt and a long white apron. They had to wear ties, but color was encouraged. “We wanted them to show their personality,” Carl explains. Kelly Connell, who came aboard in 1998, gravitated toward Jerry Garcia’s tie collection.
Carl and Connell formed a bond. “We connected almost instantaneously,” Carl says. “We have a lot of the same values and character.”
When Black Trumpet offered Connell a management position, Carl supported it. Connell returned to the fold when Platinum Dining Group opened Dome, now RedFire. He is now a director of operations.
Today, the executive team are all veterans who started as servers and managers. “You can’t be successful in this business if you don’t have confidence that they can handle it,” Carl says. “The best results come from collaboration.”
That trust led to the opening of more restaurants.
Taking It Down a Notch
Ruth’s four-star review was published after the Georigis announced Dome, Platinum’s second establishment. “Winter isn’t even here yet, and already I can’t wait until spring,” Ruth wrote about the new location.
Dome was vibrant and casual — the Georigis clearly knew the tide was turning. Eclipse’s tablecloths, quiet music, innovative food and lack of TVs made it fine dining. But Carl wanted “fun dining.” Weekends were busy, but traffic was slower early in the week. Carl and Lisa removed the tablecloths, turned up the volume and hung a TV behind the bar.
Eclipse was now Eclipse Bistro, and there was a burger on the revamped menu. Not everyone approved. The sous chef stated that he didn’t go to culinary school to flip burgers.
“He left,” Nick recalls. “A month later, he [became] a good regular who sat at table eight and drank a $95 bottle of wine and ate a burger.”
The DuPont executive who visited up to four times a week was also disgruntled. He looked Carl in the eye and said: “You’re making a big mistake. This is going to fail.”
He was wrong. The bistro was packed for weekday lunch, dinner and happy hour. Suddenly, people wanted to sit at the bar, which wasn’t the case before the reset. The customer was a good sport. When he returned, “it was high fives all around,” Carl says.
In all, there have been three renovations, and each made the dining room more approachable and modern. “You have to make it fresh,” Lisa says. “You can’t just leave the interior stagnant. People want to see you reinvesting in the restaurant.”
Carl agrees. “When they see you investing in the space they love so much, they appreciate it.”
While some may quibble about the definition of a bistro, Eclipse’s evolution turned the special occasion spot into a neighborhood hub.
“As a new transplant in Wilmington in the early aughts, the bar scene there made me feel like I had finally come home,” Alicia Sheerin says.
Gentleman-about-town Roi Barnard has been a customer since Eclipse opened. “I have written two books at the bar and starting my third,” he says. “Eclipse has everything you need for a one-stop evening.”
Ellen Kurtz loves the “buzz. “Very few places in Wilmington have that,” she notes.
Aging Like Fine Wine
Eclipse has outlasted many of the area’s premier restaurants: Black Trumpet, Michele’s, Sow’s Ear, Silk Purse, Sal’s — they’re all gone. Even The Green Room expired.
The restaurant has also outlived some memorable characters. Steve Lewis was one of them. The bike-riding server with the enviable curly mane spent 25 years working at Tiffin and Eclipse. Lewis refused to work weekends despite ribbing from his colleagues.
“I’m way too old to miss any more Saturday nights,” he told Connell. Carl let the avid Phillies fan keep a transistor radio in the kitchen so he could keep up with the score. He died of cancer in 2006, a few days after telling Nick he might be available for a few shifts.
Fortunately, Eclipse has no shortage of familiar faces. Consider bartender Andrew Charlton. “Andrew makes the best espresso martini around, and that’s hard for me to admit,” says fellow bartender Emily Ford, who works at Corner Bistro. Renata Kowalczyk loves the Italian with Negroni foam, and Darren Dowell orders the J&J Bomber, an oversized martini named for regulars Jim and Jame Erisman.
Customer Ed Dwornik sums it up: “They really do everything right — the service, food and atmosphere are welcoming and exquisite at the same time,” he says. “When dining at Eclipse, I feel like I’m somewhere special, and at the same time, it feels like home.”
Above: The Platinum Dining Group management team at the place it all started —Eclipse Bistro. From left: Lisa Georigi, Nick Georigi, Kelly Connell, Carl Georigi, M. Bryan Jariwala. Photo by Joe del Tufo