A slice of life for Prophetstown pair

Anyway you slice it, Mike and Amber Rippy enjoy being part of the food industry – serving it, making it, and now, owning a piece of it.

Rippy’s Pizza & Pasta opened its doors Jan. 10 at 710 Swanson Drive, and for the Rippys, it’s the culmination of years spent on both sides of the restaurant counter.

Mike, 40, has been making pizzas ever since he can remember – “ever since I was a little kid,” he said.

His now-late father, Mike Rippy Sr., worked for Angelo’s Pizza in Rock Falls and would often bring his son to work with him. Eventually, he opened his own Angelo’s Pizza in Fulton – which has since moved to Clinton, Iowa – when Mike was 15 and ran it for 10 years before selling it.

Amber, 30, has been a waitress since she was 15 and still works a few days a week at Prophet Family Restaurant in Prophetstown.

“I just love the customers,” she said. “Nobody’s the same, everybody’s different, everybody’s got a different personality. I just love being involved with the public.”

With all that experience behind them, the two had just about all the ingredients they needed to run a their own place. They were missing just one thing: A restaurant.

Enter Joe and Lena Alfano.

Mike was working at their restaurant, The Italian, when the Alfanos decided it was time to move on. They offered Mike a chance to take over and Rippy’s was born.

Now, nearly 4 months after opening, business is better than they expected. In fact, early on, some days were a sellout and they had to close for a day or 2 to restock.

The orders “hit like a banshee” when they open at 4 p.m., Mike said.

“I come in between 3:30 p.m. and 4 p.m. and the phones [are] ringing … non-stop because people are trying to get their orders in ahead of time trying to beat the four o’clock rush,” Amber said.

In addition to pizza, Rippy’s offers pasta, sub sandwiches, calzones, burgers, and appetizers. The biggest sellers by far? Spaghetti pizza and garlic nuggets. They’re are also working on a kids menu and plan to dabble in catering from time to time.

The Rippys use fresh ingredients whenever they can in their homemade recipes.

“What we can find fresh, we do fresh,” Amber said.

Although both Mike and Amber have spent several years in the industry, learning how to run their own business has been a learning experience for both of them, and they’ve found that they make a pretty good combo – you might even say they go together like cheese and sausage.

“She’s the front office, I’m manufacturing,” Mike said.

Five years down the road, Mike would like to own the building that Rippy’s calls home, and maybe even open a second location, hopefully one with dine-in seating.

All the hard work is worth it, though, as long as they can provide a future for their daughter, Tamber, 2.

Mike and Amber would be happy if they could pass the family business on to Tamber, but it’s something even more important they want to pass on to their daughter: a strong sense a values.

“It’s always a trade that you can have, being able to communicate with people and being able to take care of yourself in the same sense,” Amber said. “Those are the kind of values we want to teach her. That you don’t have to rely on anyone but yourself.”

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