La Nonna Bella closes in Garden City, pasta dishes defined the restaurant
La Nonna Bella closed at 660 Franklin Ave., ending nearly two decades in Garden City. Its cavatelli and other regional pasta dishes had become part of the restaurant’s identity.
La Nonna Bella closed in Garden City, ending a run that had made 660 Franklin Ave. a familiar stop for pasta-driven Italian dinners in Nassau County. The closure landed with particular weight because the restaurant’s identity was built around handmade and regional dishes, not just red-sauce standbys.
Newsday’s image caption put one of the restaurant’s signature plates front and center: cavetelli Conversanese with spinach, fresh fava beans and homemade pasta. Menu listings also pointed to gnocchi al pomodoro and strascinate Pugliesi, a lineup that told regulars exactly what kind of room La Nonna Bella was, with pasta at the center rather than on the sidelines.
OpenTable said that in November 2010, Lino, Erica and a very close friend took over the restaurant and began introducing their culinary creations. That gives the closing a longer arc than a simple landlord change or a short-lived closure notice. It marks the end of a chapter that stretched across nearly two decades, the kind of stretch that lets a dining room become part of a neighborhood’s routine, from weeknight reservations to birthdays and family tables.
Patch said the owners posted the announcement on Facebook on July 31, and almost 100 local Long Islanders left comments reacting to the news and praising the Franklin Ave. business and Chef Lino. News 12 Long Island also reported that the restaurant was closing after nearly 20 years, a sign that the loss registered well beyond a single dining circle. Listings on Yelp and other restaurant directories already identified La Nonna Bella as closed.
For a pasta restaurant like La Nonna Bella, the loss is not just one more empty storefront. It removes a specific kind of destination, one where diners went expecting handmade pasta, regional Italian plates and the comfort of a room that had settled into its own rhythm. The cavatelli Conversanese in the image capture that identity in a single plate, and now that plate is part of the restaurant’s past in Garden City.
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