Bringing Red-Sauce Restaurants Back to Madison

Originally published in Madison Magazine - February 2025 Issue

Sam Brown, owner of Fabiola’s Spaghetti House & Deli, is slowly bringing Madison’s historic Greenbush neighborhood back to its roots.

For decades, Greenbush was home to a mix of Jewish and Black families and southern Italian immigrants. When urban renewal displaced more than a thousand residents and dozens of businesses in the ’60s, the neighborhood was permanently altered.

Brown opened Fabiola’s in November 2023 as a love letter to the Italian and Jewish culinary traditions that harken back to the heyday of Greenbush. The menu is an indulgence of antipasto, Italian-style steaks, chops, chicken and, most importantly, red-sauce spaghetti.

“This neighborhood was famous for its red-sauce restaurants,” says Brown. “The intersection of Park and Regent streets was known as ‘Spaghetti Corners’ because there were four Italian restaurants that bordered on every side. I just wanted to bring back a little bit of that history.”

Brown grew up in a family of restaurateurs: His father, Roger Brown, co-founded Rocky Rococo, while his mother crafted its signature recipes. Sam Brown managed the Regent Street location of the regional pizza chain for six years. When it was his turn to open a restaurant, he put his own twist on things. In 2021, Brown debuted Leopold’s Books Bar Caffè right next to Rocky Rococo’s former Regent Street location (now Fabiola’s). In the last year, he also took over Greenbush Bar, which is located in the basement of the Italian Workmen’s Club — said to be one of America’s oldest operating Italian social clubs — and is beloved for its tavern-style pizza.

“In a city with fewer and fewer historic restaurants [due to closures], I thought it would be nice to open something that’s a bit evocative of the past,” says Brown, whose trio of restaurants support the restoration and growth of his neighborhood.

Fabiola’s Spaghetti House & Deli, 1301 Regent St., fabiolasmadison.com

Featured Dish | A Chicago Classic in Madison

“I opened this restaurant because I got sick of driving down to Chicago to get decent chicken Vesuvio,” says Sam Brown — so he made it Fabiola’s house specialty.

The Italian American classic is served traditionally: Two airline chicken breasts (breasts with the drumette attached) are pan-roasted and bathed in garlic, lemon and white wine sauce. Like the original dish that is assumed to have been created in Chicago in the 1930s, the Fabiola’s rendition is served with a side of roasted potatoes and peas that also get the Vesuvio sauce treatment.

Game Day Tradition | The Regent Street Tailgate

In 1998, Rocky Rococo began holding a Regent Street tailgate on Badgers football game days. It’s a tradition that Brown continues at Fabiola’s. During most home games, the restaurant closes while the parking lot in front of Fabiola’s and Leopold’s transforms into a party, with local DJ Nick Nice curating tunes near a 60-foot pop-up bar.

The team at Fabiola’s serves over 1,000 Badgers fans each tailgate, offering 20 types of beer, craft cocktails and an elevated game-day menu including a Fraboni’s hot Italian sandwich, bratwurst served with grilled onions and apple bacon sauerkraut, deep-fried hot dogs wrapped in bacon, and a tropical Hawaiian Polish sandwich.

Salvaged Rebuild | Designed by Sam

For Brown, transforming the old Rocky Rococo into the moody and romantic Fabiola’s was a labor of love. He designed each of his restaurants himself but employed a team to help bring them to life. “I have an in-house team of septuagenarian carpenters,” says Brown. In fact, it’s the same group that built the first Rocky’s in 1974. The back bar and many of the wood features were salvaged from a tavern in Monona called Snicks Sportsman’s, which opened during the Depression and closed in 2022. “We replaned, refinished and repurposed the timber to build the different wooden elements throughout the space.”

The Rocky’s Mural

Fabiola’s most noteworthy repurposed piece? A 5-by-12-foot ceramic mosaic mural originally commissioned for the State Street Rocky Rococo in 1977. (The mural moved to the Regent Street location in 1998.) It features two creatures sharing slices of pizza, and if you look closely, artist Albert “Vojta” Svoboda screen-printed hidden photos of the former State Street location’s team, including Brown’s father, among the tiles.

Sunday Gravy | A Rich and Meaty Sauce

Sunday gravy, sugo or Sunday sauce, as some call it, is a rich, meaty, tomato-based sauce traditionally cooked in a big stockpot over the stove for hours on Sundays. Fabiola’s Sunday gravy is braised with boneless beef short rib braciole (inspired by a recipe from Josie’s Spaghetti House, an Italian restaurant that operated on Regent Street for 40 years), house-made meatballs and hot Italian sausage from Fraboni’s Italian Specialties and Delicatessen.

“It always starts with San Marzano tomatoes,” says Brown. “We caramelize and puree onions and add bay leaf, chile de árbol and garlic.” The slow-cooked gravy is served over rigatoni, with a big helping of the saucy meats on the side.