Unexpected Restaurateur

This June, Ciana Ristorante Italiano will celebrate its one-year anniversary. It’s a milestone owner and executive chef LORRAINE RODERICK is proud of, but getting there was anything but easy.

The idea for Ciana Ristorante Italiano started in October 2022. Roderick’s wife, Susan, had just suffered her second stroke of the year, which would eventually tally to three strokes and two aneurysms, including a five-week coma.

During that time, the couple found themselves out of work and without health insurance, ultimately resulting in the two sitting on almost half of a million dollars in medical bills.

“I received an email from my employer at the time terminating me from my position,” Roderick says. “After reading that email, I visited my wife on ICU while she was out of it, kissed her on the head and whispered in her ear, ‘I promise baby, I will figure it all out, and I will take care of you.'”

Roderick needed a solution that allowed her the flexibility to care for her wife and earn an honest income. The answer was Ciana Ristorante Italiano.

“Owning my own restaurant was neither a dream or desire of mine,” Roderick says. “My wife, prior to the three strokes and two aneurysms, owned her own medical lab, and one business owner in the household was enough. I knew the financials of a restaurant and the temperamental quirkiness of restaurant ownership and honestly didn’t want the stress, strife, headache, and turmoil of it all.”

She forged ahead anyway, and looking back now, Roderick says she wouldn’t trade her restaurant for the world.

With her wife still in the ICU, Roderick signed the lease on her restaurant, used their last bit of money, and said, “OK…here we go,” she says.

The space Roderick is currently renting, located on New Centre Drive, is owned by Chef Danny and Lana Ke, the owners of Genki Sushi.

To begin her new restaurant endeavor, Roderick researched the Italian language to spark ideas for a name. She landed on Ciana, which translates to “God is gracious.” She says it felt fitting after the year she’d been having. Admittedly, Roderick did “the fun stuff first,” like write and design her menu and tweak and perfect her recipes.

She says she settled on the theme of an Italian restaurant because she simply loves the cuisine.

“Italian food has always been my love,” she says. “I’m not Italian, but I always tell people I’m a fat chick that likes to cook Italian food.”

All of Roderick’s cooking skills are self-taught, and everything on the menu is made from scratch. Some of her bestsellers are the d’Angelo, Marsala, and Bolognese, as well as eggplant.

“We do our eggplant very traditionally,” Roderick says. “We take the skin off, slice it thin, and bread it.”

Now that the restaurant is approaching one year in business, Roderick is continually surprised and honored by the support and feedback she’s received. Ciana Ristorante Italiano has 4.9 stars on Google and 5 stars on Facebook.

“I’m very humbled,” she says. “My client base, the majority of them are from the North. They say, ‘Finally, I found a little bit of New York or New Jersey right here in Wilmington.’”

To view more of photographer Aris Harding’s work, go to arisharding.com.

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