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DINING
West Hartford's thriving restaurant scene can trace its beginning to the brothers' Bricco. Today their success stems from staying ahead of the trends.
By Bob Chaplin and Prudence Sloane
Look back at West Hartford
12 years ago and what do you see? There’s a couple of pizza places,
empty streets and a lot of vacant parking spaces. Fast forward to 2005
and it’s a food lover’s dream with a smorgasbord of culinary-driven
restaurants. How did such change begin? What was the first brick in
the wall that turned this community devoid of action and nightlife into
the bustling scene it is today? We think the rise of the West Hartford
restaurant scene is synonymous with the rise of the Grant brothers’
restaurant business. It all started with three brothers and a restaurant
called Bricco.
The saga of the trio of Grant brothers, Billy, Michael and Tony, who operate and run the Italian-influenced restaurant Bricco and the more upscale Grants in West Hartford, is a convoluted story. The Grant family has been involved in many aspects of dining in the Hartford area, starting with their father’s Augie and Ray’s, a drive-in style diner serving up hot dogs and hamburgers. It was a fixture in East Hartford from the late 1950s into the ’80s, where the three brothers worked while in college studying business management. It closed years ago. Billy moved to his uncle Paul’s white tablecloth restaurant, The Eatery, in East Windsor, and working there spurred his cooking passion. While Billy honed his culinary skills, Michael and Tony jumped into the restaurant business and opened Manhattan Bagel in West Hartford. Billy joined them later, but toasting bagels was only wasting his talents. (They sold the business, and it now operates as Bagel Z.)
We sat down with Billy and his brother Tony and asked what prompted
them to open an upscale eatery in West Hartford.
