Pasta Factory adding new dishes

CLIFTON PARK (Nov. 23) — With a name like The Pasta Factory, you’d naturally expect the hot new item on the menu to be … beef on weck?

The sandwich — a favorite in Western New York — is just one of the many changes since the Clifton Park Center restaurant rebranded itself after leaving the Nothing But Noodles franchise chain. And more are coming as the restaurant will continue to introduce new menu items.

Pasta Factory owner Chris Holmes is adding new items to the fast casual restaurant's offerings -- including beef on weck sandwiches, a Buffalo specialty.

Pasta Factory owner Chris Holmes is adding new items to the fast casual restaurant's offerings -- including beef on weck sandwiches, a Buffalo specialty.

“The beef on weck goes against everything else on the menu,” Pasta Factory director of operations Chris Holmes said. “But I wanted to have a sandwich 7 days a week for lunch and dinner that nobody else in the area has.”

A cousin introduced Holmes to beef on weck about 10 years ago, and since then, he’s been a big fan. Apparently he’s not the only one.

“We’ve had people come in and order 4 to go,” Holmes said. “We’ve sold 27 in a day.”

Though Holmes said he still feels a little nervous when someone announces a Buffalo heritage and orders a beef on weck, so far the sandwich has passed every test.

Beef on weck isn’t the new addition. The restaurant has introduced Tuscan ciabatta melts — open-faced sandwiches available in Tuscan chicken, portabella mushroom, four-cheese and sausage-and-peppers varieties — along with meat dishes such as chicken alexandra, shrimp scampi and lobster ravioli. And more choices are on the way; Holmes is continuing his research and development in hopes of adding more items next year.

Holmes brings 25 years of restaurant experience — working from small places, such as former Wolf Road mainstay Cranberry Bog, to Brinker International, owner of Chili’s and part-owner of Romano’s Macaroni Grill — to The Pasta Factory. He said he is pleased with what the restaurant has become.

“To me,” he said, “the biggest reward is when someone says, ‘I love this food, and I want to come back.’”

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