One evening in 1997, my mother was in a taxicab coming back from Manhattan with her friend Ruth. In the mood for Italian food, my mom asked the cabbie if he knew of any good places to eat in Brooklyn. The cabdriver recommended a place called Bon Appetit on Avenue S and Nostrand Avenue. My mom took the cabbie’s advice and had him drop her and Ruth there. After trying the food – and loving it – my mom asked me to review it for the restaurant review column I was writing at the time called, “Your Table Awaits.”

When I arrived at the restaurant for the first time, I met Guido and Maryann Arbia and planned to write an honest review that was based on the food, décor and service. After I tried the food and loved it – and after seeing what wonderful people Guido and Maryann were – I wrote my review and published it in that week’s edition of The Brooklyn Baron.

A few days after the paper was published, I got a message from Maryann saying she wanted to talk to me about my review. When I called her back and asked what she wanted to talk about – she told me that since the review had been published – she has had to turn people away from the restaurant each night because they did not have enough tables to accommodate the amount of people who came in. While she thanked me and said that the sudden influx of customers was because of my review – I knew it was actually because of Guido’s passion for cooking and her warm hospitality that made me write a glorious review of her restaurant.

Since that review, I have eaten at Bon Appetit hundreds of times, taken dozens of my friends there, taped a segment of Ring Fever in the restaurant, gone on dates there – and even worked there for a day. And at 11:00am today, I have to do the one thing that I have never done and never wanted to do at Bon Appetit – help them close for good.

Yesterday, Maryann told the staff that they have found a buyer who is going to turn the Italian Restaurant into an Irish Pub – and that last night was their last night in business. The reason they decided to close the restaurant is so that Guido can start a catering business, which will bring him easier and more lucrative business with less overhead costs.

While I am extremely happy for Maryann and Guido and of course wish them the best of luck in their new venture – I am very, very sad to see them close. Besides being an amazing cook – Guido has become a dear friend of mine. Since the beginning of this year, I have found myself practically living in Guido’s restaurant. Almost every night, I would bike over there and spend sometimes the entire night there until they closed. Most of the time I would eat, but sometimes – I would just go there to hang out with Guido. In doing so, I became extremely close to Guido and really good friends with Giselle and Jeanine, Bon Appetit’s two lovely waitresses. On busy nights, I would sit at the back table and make conversations with the regular customers. On slow nights – Guido, Giselle, Jeanine and myself would sit around the table and have great conversations like we were best friends. It is those nights that I am going to miss the most.

What really pisses me off is that of the grillion Italian restaurants in Brooklyn, the best one of them all is the one that is closing. This borough has so many Italian eateries that there are two other Italian restaurants just one block from Bon Appetit. The difference between Bon Appetit and all of the other Italian restaurants in Brooklyn and anywhere else for that matter is that they all lack one crucial ingredient in their food that only Guido has – passion. Guido and his wife did not need Bon Appetit to survive financially – they wanted to open the restaurant so Guido could share his unique culinary skills with hungry Brooklynites. From making his own chicken and veal stock to buying only Prince Edward Island mussels and milk-fed veal to grinding his own bread crumbs – Guido cares about each and every dish that comes out of his kitchen – while most other restaurants just care about the amount of the check. I can honestly tell you that of all the meals I have eaten there – I was never once disappointed with anything Guido made for me.

But none of that matters now – because Bon Appetit is no more. In a weird way, I feel like I was the owner of the restaurant due the fact that I was there almost every day – and the fact that Guido and Maryann allowed me to make myself at home there. And while I will always cherish the memories I have made there – no other restaurant I have eaten in or will eat in will be as welcoming, friendly, inviting or delicious as Bon Appetit. I will never find myself sitting in another restaurant engaged in banter with the chef and waitresses. I won’t have the desire to bike to another restaurant to simply hang out there until it closes – and I will never taste another meal that will even come close to the masterpieces that Guido made for me.

I know that today will be a sad day because it will be the last time I set foot in Bon Appetit, but it will also be a day that will stay with me for a long time. At 11:00am, Guido, Maryann, Giselle, Jeanine and Guido’s assistant chef Luis will pack up the place, reminisce about the good times we shared there – and eat the very last meal Guido will ever make in that kitchen. In addition to offering my assistance, I plan to bring my digital camera and take as many pictures as I can, because no one took pictures when they demolished Ebbets Field, or when they closed the doors at Coney Island’s Steeplechase Park. I, however, plan to make sure that I have many photographs to look at whenever I want to remember the day I said goodbye to The Italian Restaurant of Italian restaurants. They day the doors closed on an eatery that was like no other – and the day Brooklyn lost yet another famous landmark that will never come again – Bon Appetit Restaurant.