Sarasota craft taco spot to close, reopen under pizza concept

A craft taco restaurant in a busy Sarasota shopping plaza is switching to a new concept: pizza, with a focus on combining on-premises dining with an in-house delivery operation.

The old place is Irma’s Tacos, in the Fruitville Commons plaza and mixed-use project, just east of Interstate 75. The new place will be called VCo Pizzeria, says owner Tommy Villani, which he bills as a Bronx-style eatery with a menu that includes calzones, stombolios, heroes and a dozen specialty pizzas. Like Irma’s there will be a bar; unlike Irma's, VCo’s menu has lines like “you can’t make everyone happy. You're not pizza.”

VCo is scheduled to open this Friday, July 10.

“This is designed to really fill what we believe this market is in need of,” Villani says in a July 2 interview inside the restaurant. The Irma’s Tacos sign sat on the floor behind Villani during the interview as workers continued tinkering for the changeover. “Everyone loves pizza and being able to produce a product that everybody loves in an area that’s definitely in need of it is really pretty cool.”

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Villani says his research shows a lack of non-chain pizza places in the area, in addition to a lack of delivery options outside digital services like Uber Eats. DoorDash and GrubHub. VCo will work with those outlets, while also using its own delivery drivers. “We want the dining room to do really well, of course,” he says of the 125-seat restaurant, including inside, outside and bar options, “but delivery will be a really big part of this.”

As Villani and his team, including Executive Chef Mike Leopold, ready VCo for opening, he will also maintain the Irma’s Taco’s brand — the original location, in Wellen Park in south Sarasota County, opened in summer 2020. Villani also owns Villani & Co., a steak, seafood and raw bar concept, also in Wellen Park. 

The Irma’s Tacos name stems from the hurricane with the same moniker that shredded the region in 2017. Back then Villani owned a brewery, Off the Wagon, in Venice, just north of Wellen Park. The eatery was one of the rare places to have power after Hurricane Irma, a Category 4 storm when it hit Florida, first in the Keys, so Villani and Leopold went to work making the only menu items they had ingredients for: tacos. They served some 500 shrimp and steak tacos that day, Villani recalls, and Irma’s Tacos was born. 

Villani sold Off the Wagon in 2022; the Fruitville Irma’s opened in October 2023. While the Fruitville spot nearly reached three years, a milestone for an independent restaurant, Villani says it plateaued in sales as costs continued to rise. “Our reviews were pretty solid, and our customer service marks were pretty high,” he says, “but we just couldn’t get over the hump like the store in Wellen Park.”

The cost factor is one of the challenges at VCo, say Villani and Leopold. They plan to use top-shelf ingredients, like King Arthur flour, and will not use canned tomatoes or canned mushrooms, which squeezes margins a bit. Wages are likewise climbing. Leopold says the company pays about 25% more now than it did a year or two ago; cooks are up $5 an hour in pay.

Villani, at least, says he’s not alone in fighting the rising cost challenge: The investment to flip Irma’s to VCo, is minimal, but he notes “real estate, insurance, everything is more expensive. It’s something every American family is going through.” 

Families are what Villani hopes to see more of at VCo in the coming months. He says when he travels to other towns and cities, one of his favorite things to do is check out the shopping plaza Italian joints. The places are usually busy and buzzy, but also comfortable and familiar. He wants that for VCo. “It’s a word that definitely gets overused,” says Villani, “but we want to treat everybody who comes in here like family.”