Romano’s Italian Restaurant at 5666 S. Windermere St. inhabits a building composed of three shops, now joined together internally to accommodate a single restaurant. The building opened in 1965 as the Pizza Garden and became Romano’s Italian Restaurant in 1967, just two years later. Designed in the Modernist style, the building is minimally adorned and rectilinear with a flat roof. The awning that runs across the front somewhat hides the articulated mansard-style fascia that runs the length of the building’s façade.

The west-facing asymmetrical includes single and multiple vertical windows above low metal panels or inset planter boxes faced with tongue and groove siding. These alternate with panels of stack-bond concrete block with raked vertical and horizontal joints. Above each of the masonry panels, the roof fascia steps out and a red gooseneck light fixture is affixed to the roof flashing. Within one recessed alcove, the main entry door is positioned perpendicular to the wall. This is one of the four buildings on Mid Mod Mile still occupied by longtime owners.

ShowDocument (littletongov.org)

Photographed by Rick Cronenberger

Source: “Commercial Modernism in the Greater West Littleton Boulevard Corridor, 1950–1980” by Michael Paglia and Diane Wray Tomasso.