A small billboard announces the coming of Romano’s Macaroni Grill, an Italian restaurant, to Camp Foster on Okinawa. The MCCS project features, at 15,000 square feet, the largest Macaroni Grill in the chain. (David Allen / S&S)
CAMP FOSTER, Okinawa — Imagine this for a lunchtime treat: white mushrooms baked with ricotta and feta cheese, spinach and seasoned bread crumbs with a drizzle of honey balsamic sauce.
That’s the appetizer. Follow it with a large salad and chicken cannelloni — hand-rolled pasta stuffed with roasted chicken, cheese, spinach and baked in Asiago cream sauce.
Accompanied by a choice Italian red wine.
Well, you won’t have to use your imagination much longer if you live on Okinawa. Ground recently was broken for a new Romano’s Macaroni Grill on Camp Foster, next to the West Pac Inn.
The new restaurant, a 15,000- square-foot complex, will be the biggest restaurant in the chain once it’s complete, said Ben Erichsen, chief marketing officer for Marine Corps Community Services on Okinawa. It’s scheduled to open sometime in late spring or early summer of 2006.
“Marketing research has shown that high-quality Italian food is one of the most requested and also one of the most under- served dining categories on Okinawa,” Erichsen said Thursday. “Macaroni Grill is extremely popular in America and we anticipate that the new restaurant will be very well-received.”
Erichsen said one of the best parts of his job was being able to research restaurants in the United States during the selection of a quality restaurant to replace the old West Pac Family Restaurant near Camp Foster’s Marine Headquarters Building.
“Macaroni Grills (restaurants) were absolutely the best,” Erich- sen said. “What’s really cool about them is that you go in and you basically can build your own dish — selecting the kind of pasta and topping you want. The kitchen is open and they create the dishes to your instructions.
“Or you can order off the menu,” he said, laughing. “They also have these huge salads and great house wines. I think people are going to go nuts when we open.”
Besides being the largest restaurant in the Macaroni Grill chain, “it also is the first restaurant in the Marine Corps that is fully funded by nonappropriated funds,” Erichsen said.
“That means that it will be entirely built with funds generated by MCCS,” he said. “We will own the restaurant on behalf of Marines and their families.”
The restaurant will be operated by Hasmore Inc., a Taiwan franchise of Dallas-based Brinker International. Founded in 1975, Brinker International has 1,400 restaurants worldwide.
Erichsen said the Camp Foster Macaroni Grill will be open for lunch and dinner and will offer take-out orders. In addition to the restaurant, the large complex will offer a bar, party rooms and a gaming room including slot machines, he said.
