COLONIE — The Latham restaurant Taste of Italy has closed and been replaced by La Famiglia Pizza & Pasta, a sibling of La Famiglia Pizza in Colonie. Whether Taste of Italy’s controversial owners, Frank and Alyssa Cappello, have moved out of the Capital Region is unclear, but a video Frank posted Sunday morning showed him driving on a highway that goes across parts of Texas and New Mexico.
La Famiglia’s first day in the former Taste of Italy space in a shopping complex at 800 Loudon Road was Thursday, said owner Ervin “Vini” Dalipaj, a native of Albania who opened La Famiglia on Central Avenue with a cousin in 2009. A copy of the lease shown to the Times Union on Sunday by the location’s manager, Anxhel “Angel” Shkulaku, shows that La Famiglia assumed the final two years of Taste of Italy’s lease as of Sept. 30 and has the option for two five-year renewals.
Dalipaj said he is not an avid user of social media and was visiting family in Albania when the Cappellos and Taste of Italy exploded into the news in June after Alyssa Cappello made anti-Muslim comments in response to the drowning death of a disabled boy…