I know that this is an old post and that many of these posts are GOSSIP, maybe I can shed light on what is and what is NOT happening with the 42 year old establishement..............
The history of this restaurant starts with the fact that it was the original site of The Evans Farm Inn. It moved in the 60's to its last location. I know this because I have spoken to Mr. Evans quite often. That location was the first in NoVa with air conditioning. It was a bit crude but they used dried ice to cool the restaurant.
The year after that (1964?) it was leased and turned into a restuarant called The Frankenstein. It died in a year, it was quite...............scary to say the least, from what I had seen of it and was told. Really not much else to say for that one year.
It was then for sale, the original owner of the property was the owner of the hardware store. He later went on to sell the hardware store and has since passed. The current owner has no relations to the former owner except they share the same first name, Bill. Up until the Frankenstein, the spot was leased and that is why the Evans Inn moved to McLean. Finally the owner decided to sell the property and restaurant to its current owner of the Alpine.
There were four Italian gentlemen that owned and operated the Alpine, three were chefs and the other was the finance part. After a few years the financier stepped away and one of the original chefs passed away, he was a bit older than the other two chefs. I beieve since about 1979 Pino Gagliardi and Ermanno Tonizzo have owned and operated the restaurant. They were brothers in law, they married sisters. Ermanno Tonizzo had three other brothers that worked side by side with them as chefs, each one leaving the Alpine, one after the other. The three other brothers have since opened their own successful restaurants.
Pino Gagliardi has since retired from the Alpine, I believe about 5 to 7 years ago. That leaves Ermanno Tonizzo as the sole heir and owner of the Alpine. He has been the default face of the Alpine and was well known. He was very close friends with the Redskins team doctor in the 60's and that lead him to meet Jack Kent Cooke and Joe Gibbs. He then became the Official Redskins Chef. He flew with the team to their away games and could be seen walking the sidelines during home games as well.
For those that have not been there, the Alpine is a very large restaurant. In its hey day, the Alpine was THE best restaurant in NoVa. Sure it has seen better days but only one restaurant can say it has been around longer............Clyde's of Georgetown, by one year. It would be great if the Alpine got a face lift, a nip and tuck........that is yet to be seen. It currently is open for business for years to come. Sure it is for sale, like everything else in life. Everything has a price and so does the Alpine.
Yes, the entire block on either side is ripe for redevelopment, but I do see it years away. If anyone on this site has lived here for more than ten years (and I'm sure most of you have only lived here less than ten years) Ballston and Clarendon were dumps, even after the metro came in. Glebe and Lee will have its day in the sun, like it used to. It wouldn't take long to redevelop this area, it simply has to wait out the explosive growth of Clarendon and Ballston. You can see that it already has started by the massive redevelopment of 4 square blocks on Glebe, turning apartments into high end condos.
SO, just a little bit of truth of what seemed to be alot of gossip about an old lady called the Alpine.
PS..............Don't Indians come from Kilmanrock?