Tambellini’s Restaurant and Lounge in Bridgeville will ring in 2016 tonight, a final celebration before permanently closing its doors.

The building’s new owners plan to open a microbrewery.

“We’ve had a great run,” said Dan Tambellini, who opened the restaurant in 1985 with his father Bruno.

The two purchased the old Bridgeville Hotel at  413 Railroad St. “The old-timers claim Frank Sinatra used to visit the hotel whenever he was in town,” the younger Mr. Tambellini said.

“Mario Lemieux was here at the restaurant a lot,” he said. “I remember when Matthew McConaughey came, I couldn’t get my waitresses to work.”

Mr. Tambellini has many memories, including the flooding of the restaurant by the remnants of Hurricane Ivan in 2004. “It was raining like crazy outside. An attorney said to me, ‘As the owner of this building, you do not have to evacuate the building when they tell you to.’” When a firefighter arrived, Mr. Tambellini sent his staff and patrons home, but he refused to leave.

“I was inside the building alone,” he said, “trying to decide what to salvage.”

Another firefighter came 20 minutes later. “He said, ‘You better evacuate. The dam at Canonsburg is about to burst and if it does, your rooftop won’t save you.’ I was gone after that,” Mr. Tambellini said. “When I left, the water was just pouring into the restaurant. There was a car floating, and it was as high as the street sign.” Luckily, the dam remained intact.

Mr. Tambellini returned the next day. “It was crystal clear outside, but inside it was filled with water.” The basement was completely flooded with 5 inches of water on the street level.

“A great deal of my assets were in the basement,” he said, including a 130-person banquet room, commercial kitchen and industrial freezers. Mr. Tambellini had no flood insurance, but he was able to reopen about six months later. “There was no question we’d keep going,” he said.

One year later, tragedy struck again. An employee left a pot of oil on the stove above a pilot light. “Commercial-range pilot lights are bigger than household,” Mr. Tambellini explained. “It brought the oil to a flash point.” The exhaust vent was in flames when a patron from a neighboring bar entered the building to warn them.

“This time we had insurance and we opened one month later,” Mr. Tambellini said.

Some of the employees have been with the restaurant for decades, including Joe Boova, who has tended bar since 1985. Others have worked there for nearly 20 years.

The first Tambellini family member to go into business was Joseph, an uncle to Dan. “That was in the Hill District on Wylie Avenue,” he recalled. “They moved to Mount Washington on Shiloh, and then my Uncle Louis opened a location in Mount Washington as well.” Eventually Louis moved his restaurant to the 700-seat space on Route 51, which closed in 2006.

“My dad’s brother Alex owned the location on Wood Street. That is where I learned to cook,” Mr. Tambellini said.

With the Bridgeville restaurant closing, the last in-town location is Joseph Tambellini in Highland Park, which opened in 2007.

Dan Tambellini is considering marketing sauces and dressings online.

Amy Philips-Haller, freelance writer: suburbanliving@ post-gazette.com

First Published: December 31, 2015, 5:00 a.m.