New owners take reins at Dino’s

Dino’s Pizza & Steakhouse is under new ownership. In the transition, co-owners Christopher Robbins, Trinda Robbins and Dominick Paparone said they’d changed a lot about the joint.

The list includes interior decorations, as well as upgrades to the menu with new items and fresher ingredients, including homemade in-house pasta sauce.

Christopher moved to Washington three years ago from Las Vegas for a number of family-related reasons, and Trinda followed shortly after. They called the restaurant a “fresh start” for themselves, and an important icon to uphold for the community.

“The community has been really great, probably our biggest motivation has been seeing our regulars every day,” Christopher Robbins said. “It was already up and running, it was an opportunity we shouldn’t pass up.”

Despite the changes, new management has been careful to keep the traditions of Dino’s alive.

“We changed the decor but still wanted to keep the original booths … keep the original pizza menu, keep all the original recipes,” Paparone said. “We’re keeping the Dino’s feel and adding a couple of new touches to adjust with 2023.”

  Buy Photo

Trinda Robbins said the pizza recipe, especially, would remain unchanged.

“We wanted to make sure that we kept the pizza, number one, the same it’s been for over 40 years, that’s been really important to us,” she said. “The same recipe, the same way they do it, we make our dough fresh every other day.”

While inheriting the legacy of Dino’s was a lot of pressure at first, Trinda Robbins said the family had settled into things nicely.

“We started meeting everybody, and the community, and I think that has eased us a little bit,” she said. “The support that we get from the community has been great.”

While Trinda has run a restaurant before and Christopher has worked in upper management, the new venture posed a number of challenges. One was staff turnover. Another is the maintenance work that comes with an 80-year-old building. The evening rush is also daunting, a two-hour adrenaline-fueled blitz of orders, customers, and food prep.

Christopher Robbins said it was a learning experience.

“The physical challenge, in the kitchen, it can get hot back there,” he said. “It goes by like that.”

Comments: Kalen.McCain@southeastiowaunion.com