Mark Dym to open four restaurants at Vallagio at Inverness

Lori Midson

Rachel Ray, the painfully annoying non-chef that everyone loves to loathe, just announced her top pick for pizza dominance -- and she didn't choose Marco's Coal-Fired Pizzeria, Mark Dym's pie palace at 2129 Larimer Street. Instead, she awarded the title of Best Pizza in America to Pizzeria Bianco in Phoenix, the pizzeria by which all others are judged. And on any other day, Dym would be up in dough over the snub, but he has bigger pizzas to toss, like the addition of four new restaurants.

Dym has partnered with Peter Kudla, president of Metropolitan Homes, to essentially restaurantize the Vallagio at Inverness, a mixed use living and retail development at I-25 and Dry Creek Road. "We chose this area because we want to help develop an exciting neighborhood where residents can walk right outside their doors and have access to great restaurants and bars," says Dym, who plans to hire independent partners to run the restaurants, with the exception of Marco's, which Dym will oversee. "The concepts are all ours, but we want to hire passionate operators to run the restaurants," says Dym. "We're going to stay in the background and give others the chance to shine."

Along with a second Marco's Coal-Fired Pizzeria, which is skedded for an August debut, Dym and Kudla have plans to open an Asian noodle house along with a breakfast, lunch and coffee joint that will double as a catering operation and a "seasonally-inspired, food-driven American bistro," tentatively called Scrappy's. The second Marco's outpost, says Dym, will mimic the existing one, although the menu will be expanded to include fried pizzas and pizza al metro, or pizza by the meter. "We might even do pizzas and french fries," adds Dym.

"I think we have some really good ideas that will take shape over the next several months until ultimately the picture gets painted," says Dym, who hopes to have all four restaurants up and running by the end of the year. "We're going to take our time and make sure that we put the right partners in each of the places, but the goal is to definitely have everything open sooner rather than later."