L.I. hall leaves prepaid partyers in lurch
BY LAURA WILLIAMS
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
1/31/2005
It was Villa Leone’s intimate atmosphere that sold her.
“There was just room for one wedding at a time,” Rita Padula, 27, said of the New Hyde Park restaurant and catering hall. “It’s your special day. You don’t want to see other brides.”
Padula, a nursing home social director, knew the food and service were good because she’d eaten dinner there so often, and the owners always made a big fuss over her. So she forked over the $3,000 deposit for her reception, planned for November.
But she couldn’t have predicted that Villa Leone would suddenly shut its doors without warning this month – and keep every cent of her deposit.
“We never even received a phone call,” Padula said. “I was there for dinner a day before they closed. They didn’t say a word. I feel stepped on. Totally stepped on.”
Padula and her fiancÈ weren’t the only ones left in the lurch. Numerous parties planned for weddings, birthdays, communions and other events are in limbo.

An attorney for the catering hall said he advised his clients to refund their patrons’ money or hold their events.
“My clients said they’d do the right thing,” said the attorney, Mel Kreines.
But Mary Bochicchio is unconvinced. The 58-year-old medical biller from New Jersey paid $3,200 for her mother’s 90th birthday party at the 3-year-old eatery on Jan. 16.
A few days before the scheduled party, Bochicchio called to go over the final place-setting details.
“No one answered,” she said. “A friend who lives nearby drove by and said the place was dark, shut down, no cars in the parking lot.”
A sign on the door said it was closed for renovations – though the owners hadn’t gotten the permits needed to make any structural changes.
Again, no one from the restaurant called Bochicchio.
It seems Villa Leone never recovered from the news last November of an employee who contracted hepatitis A. At the time, John Leone, one of two brothers who owns the place, said he was getting tons of cancellations even though subsequent inspections found no further problems.
Some patrons felt sorry for the brothers – and didn’t cancel events out of loyalty.
“When the hepatitis scare happened, we didn’t jump to conclusions, bang on the door and demand our money back,” said Debbie Barbieri, of Queens, who put down a $500 deposit for her daughter’s First Communion party in May. “We wanted to give the guy a break. We understood things happen.”
But her loyalty, she said, was misplaced. The Leones didn’t pay her the courtesy of a phone call, and as of late last week, she hadn’t gotten any of her money back, she said.
Well before the hepatitis scare, last May, the Town of North Hempstead found the party area lacked a public assembly license needed for spaces that hold 50 or more people, said Town Supervisor Jon Kaiman.
The town gave the owners 30 days to comply, which they failed to do. After months of countless court dates, a judge last week fined Villa Leone $2,000. But by then, the restaurant already had posted its “closed for renovation” sign.
Kaiman said the town is forwarding stiffed patrons’ stories to the Nassau district attorney’s office.