NEWBURYPORT — Iconic local restaurant Giuseppe’s is about to have a brother.
On Thursday, co-owner Mark Audette said another Giuseppe’s is opening in North Beverly’s Enon Street plaza, hopefully within the next 30 days. The eatery will be taking the place of the former Bertucci’s that closed in December amid the chain’s financial troubles.
“They went out after 25 years and we’re going in,” Audette said.
Audette, who also owns The Deck restaurant in Salisbury, said the new location will feature the same homestyle Italian cuisine that has made Giuseppe’s one of Newburyport’s most well-known restaurants.
Over the course of 28 years, Giuseppe’s has become a beloved restaurant for thousands of Newburyporters who fell in love with the restaurant’s consistent and authentic recipes.
Audette and co-owner Robert Hartley bought Giuseppe’s on Oct. 20, 2021, from the restaurant’s founder, Giuseppe Masia, just weeks after the namesake announced he was retiring. Since the sale, the Low Street restaurant has been firing on all cylinders with its tight parking lot regularly jammed with cars during dinner hours.
The announcement comes just days after Audette finalized the sale of the Village Restaurant in Essex. The Audettes bought the Village Restaurant from Mark and Kevin Ricci of Essex in 2019. According to a posting on the restaurant’s Facebook page, the Audettes recently finalized the sale of the restaurant to new owners.
Audette said the deal was made legal on Thursday when the deed was recorded with Essex County officials. He went on to say the sale was completely unrelated to his plans to open another Giuseppe’s.
Bertucci’s owners confirmed that its restaurant in Beverly was one of several that closed last December after the company filed for bankruptcy in federal court.
Bertucci’s opened its first restaurant in Somerville in 1981 and grew to a chain of nearly 100 Italian-style restaurants in several states in the Northeast. The company first filed for bankruptcy in 2018 and is now down to 23 restaurants, including in 16 in Massachusetts, according to its website.
In its Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing, Bertucci’s cited the impact of COVID-19 and inflation for its financial troubles.
The company said it had sales of $97.9 million in fiscal 2021 but suffered an operating loss of $14 million.
North of Boston reporters Paul Leighton and Stephen Hagen contributed to this story.
Dave Rogers is the editor of the Daily News of Newburyport. Email him at: drogers@newburyportnews.com. Follow him on Twitter @drogers41008.