Somewhere in the middle of Italy, Karyn Korteling’s stomach ached. She needed food, any type.

Korteling, who was pregnant, felt a “nauseous” hunger that prompted she and her husband to pull over at “this road-side dump.” Even though they didn’t understand anything on the menu and couldn’t find anyone who spoke a word of English, they walked in. Korteling pointed to a sauce that looked appealing.

“What is this?” Korteling asked as her eyes lit up the summer day on their 1989 vacation. “This is the most amazing thing I’ve ever eaten.”

Korteling, the owner of Pastabilities on Franklin Street, travels for food inspiration. Off a nondescript road in the middle of Italy’s rolling hills, the sauce proved to be her greatest find. She came back to the United States and imitated it, calling it “spicy hot tomato oil.” It complements her bread and pastas, was featured on the Food Network earlier this year and has driven Pastabilities for nearly 30 years.

On Tuesday, National Pasta Day, Pastabilities will offer a free bag of its new dried pasta, campanelle, with the purchase of two jars of tomato oil. But there is more in store for the Armory Square restaurant this fall. In December, Pastabilities will celebrate its 35th anniversary. August was the restaurant’s busiest month ever.

And it’s coming off one of its busier weekends of the year: Syracuse University’s Family Weekend. The line is routinely out the door, and wait times are an hour or more for the restaurant, which makes between 600 and 900 meals per day. On a recent afternoon, Angie Pace, visiting from Canada, said the food and vibe reminded her of Italy. Anthony Perch, of New York City, said that whenever he visits Syracuse, he expects to wait 30 minutes or more, but that it’s well worth the wait.

To accommodate the restaurant’s high demand, Pastabilities has its own pasta-making room where its homemade pasta is rolled out.
Brigid Kennedy | Asst. Video Editor

Despite a teetering Syracuse economy, Korteling has led Pastabilities to become one of central New York’s most widely recognized establishments. On this National Pasta Day, she’ll celebrate a lot more than pasta.

She’ll celebrate how, after graduating from SU’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications in 1981, she went for an interview at NBC. Afterward, she came home and cried. She got the job, but she didn’t want to move to New York. She wanted to make pasta in Syracuse.

“I was petrified,” she said. “Everyone wanted me to go and pursue this career. I had this dream of doing this pasta restaurant.”

Korteling will celebrate how, fresh out of college in 1982, she and her boyfriend put down $15,000 to rent a small, food-court-like space on East Genesee Street. Back then, Pastabilities was solely cafeteria-style, with five sauces, a salad and bread served five days per week with lunch only. It was a dream she developed after a friend mentioned a fast-casual style pasta restaurant down South. Later, Korteling and her late husband opened for Friday and Saturday night dinners. In 1985, they moved to the restaurant’s current location across the street from Kitty Hoynes Irish Pub and Restaurant.

She’ll celebrate how her restaurant transitioned to full service, making stretch bread through a 24-hour fermentation period that gives it a ciabatta feel. The bread is baked from about 9 p.m. until the next morning.

She’ll celebrate how, 358 days per year, more than 150 pounds of pasta and 700 loaves of bread are made. The restaurant sits about 200 people, including outdoor seating, and employs about 80.

“When we began three nights per week, we all changed our outfits at night and acted like we hadn’t been there since 7 in the morning,” Korteling said. “The whole time, people thought we were crazy. We just wanted to do something that hadn’t been done before.”

She’ll celebrate how the hot spicy tomato oil may have saved Pastabilities, since about 60 percent of restaurants fail within the first three years of operation, according to the National Restaurant Association. If not for the implementation of the spicy hot tomato oil — which she coupled with bread on tables before dinner because her employees were always snacking on it — she said Pastabilities may not be here.

She’ll celebrate the years after her late husband, Patrick, died of a brain tumor in 1995. Two years later, Pastabilities began making artisan bread. When people fell in love with it, Korteling sold it by the loaf. With a few loaves of bread in hand, she then walked into City Hall and pleaded for a loan to finance bread-baking operations.

“I said, ‘Look, this is what we’re making, you’ve got to help us,’” she recalled.

She’ll celebrate how, only four years ago, Pasta’s switched to a lighter pasta. It is characterized by light noodles with internal chew, made with “extra fancy flour” with egg in it, not Al dente style, which is firm and not soft. Pastabilities cooks its trademark foot item in under two minutes, which is why it’s able to serve so quickly for its $10 cafeteria-style lunches.

“It’s Italian engineering at its best,”Korteling said last week in the pasta-making room. “Some might say it’s a Ferrari, I say it’s a pasta machine.”

Keeping everything in house has enabled Pastabilities to stay reasonably priced. Across the street sits Pasta’s Daily Bread, which opened in 2001 because demand for bread outgrew the baking space. Pasta’s offers handmade breads, salads, soups, $5 fresh mozzarella sandwiches, sauces, cookies and other baked goods.

Then Korteling will celebrate how, starting out, she lived in an apartment directly above her 4,000-square-foot restaurant. And she will celebrate how, eight years in, she second-guessed herself, questioning her decision to reject that NBC job offer in New York.

In honor of National Pasta Day, Pastabilities will offer a free bag of campanelle, its latest dried pasta, with a purchase of two jars of tomato oil.
Brigid Kennedy | Asst. Video Editor

“We had a great thing going, but there were some tough years here,” Korteling said. “So tough it was like, ‘oh my God, what do I do?’”

That’s when the accidental discovery in the rolling hill of Italy or a decision to make breads in house served as the difference maker. Each propelled the restaurant into a new phase and gave it renewed life. It’s no wonder reviews include, “Awesome, awesome, and awesome,” and “Never disappoints,” and “This place is the greatest.”

“Cosmic events made this all come together,” Korteling said.

The events steered her dream to open a restaurant specializing in pasta. Her life set her on a course to lead one of Syracuse’s most popular restaurants.

“I just never wanted to give up the idea,” Korteling said. “Our focus was to make things the way we did and not let go of that. There was a lot of pressure to make cutbacks or not make homemade pasta and cut that labor out. But my intent was to stand out and come up with that next thing. What’s our next signature thing? What is it going to be?”

Published on October 16, 2017 at 10:27 pm

Contact Matthew: [email protected] | @MatthewGut21