SOURCE ARTICLE: Timeout.com
Back when it closed during the pandemic, Anthony’s Runway 84 was old enough to be a retired postal worker. A generation that grew up in Broward went there with Nonno and Nonna to have mussels and family-sized plates of cauliflower rigatoni. They giggled at the plane fuselage in the middle of the room and decor that felt like the waiting area of a 1980s Disney ride.
The pasta was al dente, the Sunday gravy was reliably good and, for the regulars, the been-there-forever staff made it feel as welcoming as a visit to an Italian grandmother’s house. It wasn’t a concept that could survive serving takeout during the pandemic, so owner Anthony Bruno wondered how he’d keep the place going. That’s when restaurateur Marc Falsetto came in with an idea: an Italian supper club with nightly live music and a design befitting of a mafia movie backdrop.
Actually, he had an exact clip in mind as inspiration for a re envisioned Runway: the one-shot scene from “Goodfellas” where Henry heavy-tips his way past the line outside Copacabana, whisking Karen through the kitchen to an open table lifted above the crowded room and set up just for them. Falsetto wanted a place that’d make people feel that special. Bruno liked the idea so much that they decided, along with restaurateur Pat Marzano, to partner up and make it a reality.
It’s like that from the first steps into the place. Gone is the airplane museum theme, replaced instead with big-enough-for-six booths along the wall and tables in the center spread over in thick white linen. There’s floral wallpaper, lots of moody maroon and dark green accents and brass handrails separating things, all feeling like the finest restaurant from 1950s Bensonhurst moved south, brick by brick.
The backlit cutout behind the bar rises up to the ceiling, full of pretty bottles, and there’s a stage in the center of the dining room where bands play classics beginning at 8:30. The aviation nods are subtle now, little jetliners on the corners of the cocktail napkins and among some of the old photos that cover the walls. You might spot Bruno and Falsetto, surely decked in suits with no ties, along with a cadre of jovial table captains and maître d’, “how-you-doin’” their way through the dining room.