BUSINESS SPOTLIGHT:Genio’s says ‘arrivederci’

Crowds packed into Genio’s restaurant Sunday to bid farewell to a restaurant that has been a Burbank fixture for more than 50 years.

“This is a real sad time for us,” owner Marvin Cecchini said. “Many of us are heart-broken — especially my son, because the business is closed and he took such good care of it.”

Marvin Cecchini’s son, Jim Cecchini, ran Genio’s as his father’s partner for the last 25 years. What kept Genio’s, which opened in 1952, so popular over the years was great Italian fare and service combined with a cozy ambience, Jim Cecchini said.

“A lot of people like the fact that they could come in and everybody knew who they were,” he said. “And we had the same employees for a long time … there’s probably 15 employees who had been there 10 years or more.”

Genio’s closing comes at a time when the acre of land where the restaurant sits has increased in value, Marvin Cecchini said. And selling the land — which Marvin Cecchini co-owns with his brother Eugene Cecchini and his sister Paula O’Steen — is the best way to maximize the value of the property, he said.

“The property became more valuable than it would be by the restaurant paying rent,” he said.

Marvin and Jim Cecchini have been scouting other potential Genio’s locations, even well before the restaurant shut down on Sunday, Jim Cecchini said.

“We’ve been looking mostly in Burbank,” he said. “We checked out a couple of places outside of Burbank, but 90% of our clientele is here, so we’d like to stay close to where we were before.”

Genio’s has amassed a mailing list in the past two months comprised of customers who want to be notified when Genio’s reopens at another location. The list grows by about 30 to 40 customers per day and has reached more than 1,300 total, Jim Cecchini said.

The restaurant’s many patrons have strong hopes that the business has not shut down for good, said Don Ray, who lives across the street from the Genio’s site.

“Everyone who loves that restaurant is praying that someone in Burbank will offer up a space that Marvin and Jimmy Cecchini can turn into a Genio’s restaurant again,” he said. “Nobody quite wants to believe that Genio’s is dead. People are believing that it’s gone into a coma and will come out with a different identity.”