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RICHLAND - A Kennewick couple who built a successful pasta-making business until they were sidelined by tragedy and bankruptcy are back at work rebuilding their dream.
Paul and Diane Santillie plan to open a restaurant and shop -- called Pasta Mama's Santilli's -- to showcase their homemade sauces and pasta in June.
"We went through some tough times, but we never lost our dream," said Paul Santillie, 65. "We're back and we're back to stay. We're going to finish the journey we started."
He and Diane, 60, known as Pasta Mama, started their pasta-making business, Pasta Mama's, in their kitchen in 1986. The following year they moved into a tiny 1,000-square-foot storefront on Lee Boulevard in Richland.
Through the 1980s and into the 1990s the Santillies had a thriving business but they lost it all in 1997 -- three years after a hot air balloon accident paralyzed Paul.
But less than two months ago, the dynamic duo leased the former Metro 4 Cinemas building in Columbia Center North off Columbia Center Boulevard in Richland. The building also was home to the now defunct Coco Loco Dance Club and Club Paradise.
The Santillies are in the process of dividing it into four businesses: a manufacturing area for Pasta Mama's products; a retail shop for selling them; a restaurant for serving them; and Sanchic, a direct garment printing business they began about nine months ago.
"We've been working on reopening our Pasta Mama's business for years. We never quit," Paul said. "Suppliers have been calling all along. We were out of sight, but not out of mind."
The Santillies said the reception they've had since telling friends and former business associates of their plans has been phenomenal.
"Most people ask, 'What took you so long?' " he said.
This is the point in their life where the Santillies say they would have been earlier -- if it weren't for a tragic accident 16 years ago.
Paul was injured in a hot air balloon ride on his 50th birthday on July 21, 1994. A rough landing tossed him out of the basket and his right ankle became entangled in the tie rope. He was bumped and dragged 25 to 50 feet along the ground before the balloon stopped.
The injury left him with a damaged spinal cord and doctors predicted he would be paralyzed from the neck down.
But Paul and Diane did not settle for that diagnosis.
Years of rehabilitation -- and Paul's fighting spirit -- have given him the ability to stand with the aid of a walker and take a few steps. He also has the use, though limited, of his shoulders and arms.
It was that can-do attitude that allowed the couple to turn a family hobby into a thriving business.
They moved from their tiny storefront into a business incubator building in early 1988. Soon they moved into a former supermarket building on Lee Boulevard, then moved their retail operations to another on Columbia Center Boulevard, keeping the manufacturing in Richland.
Their popular sauces and dried pastas got their flavor from simple, healthy ingredients -- flour, water and vegetables or herbs like saffron, tomato and basil. They colored their pastas by mixing in pureed veggies and other natural colorings like squid ink.
Diane also created a line of sweeter "dessert" pastas and sauces, such as raspberry and apple cinnamon.
"People thought I was crazy, but they sold," she said.
Colored and flavored pastas are common now. But not back then. Their flavor and uniqueness spread throughout the Northwest and beyond with Pasta Mama's products appearing in gourmet food stores and upscale department stores, including Nordstrom.
"But after Paul's accident we couldn't make it work," she said.
At the end of January 1997 the bank foreclosed and sold the Pasta Mama's name -- but not the recipes -- to Buckeye Beans & Herbs, a Spokane business making dry soups and bread mixes. At that point, Pasta Mama's had about $2 million in annual sales and employed about 40 people.
But the costs of Paul Santillie's rehabilitation left the couple financially strapped and in December 1997 they filed for Chapter 7 liquidation in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Spokane.
They had lost everything, the business, the house, the special van they needed for Paul.
"It was leased," Diane said simply.
But shortly after Buckeye acquired the Pasta Mama's name, it, too, was foreclosed on, its assets sold. For years someone in Seattle owned the Pasta Mama's name but two months ago Paul discovered they'd let their right to it lapse. He was on the phone to his attorney immediately.
"Days later, it was ours again and we started shopping buildings," he said.
A few weeks ago, they signed the lease on the 10,700-plus-square-foot building in Columbia Center North and friends began ripping out the old carpeting, appliances and Mexican-tropical decor.
"We're on our fourth 33-foot Dumpster," Diane said.
"But the building itself could be no more perfect than if we had laid it out ourselves," Paul said. "We're blessed the way it all came about."
Their plans are to reopen Pasta Mama's Santilli's by June.
"We're looking forward to this. I predict we'll have 20 great more years," Diane said.
-- Loretto J. Hulse: 509-582-1513; lhulse@tricityherald.com
