It is always interesting to see a restaurant inhabit a new space, and Lovoy’s casual Italian spot in Homewood’s SoHo Square is no exception. Many customers have come from the original Green Springs Avenue location, as did the staff and their cherished equipment (including seasoned broilers and vintage register), but like an untailored suit or a new pair of shoes, the dining experience will not be seamless until Lovoy’s truly makes the former Grey House Grille space their own.

We arrived in the middle of a monsoon-like downpour on a Thursday evening to find Lovoy’s completely packed with a mix of families, businesspeople and young couples. The restaurant’s tall ceilings and bright lights create a vibrant atmosphere that is perfect for people watching (which I did until wellmixed cocktails arrived). Service was friendly and swift, and it wasn’t long before we were eating bowls of crispy fried calamari and bready baked oysters.

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Late Saturday night, as the last guests were leaving on the final night of the oldLovoy’s restaurant on Green Springs Highway, owners Zac Lovoy and Jim Levinson raised a toast.

Levinson’s half-brother, Joey Lide, did the honors.

Zac Lovoy stands in the dining room at the new Lovoy's restaurant, which is scheduled to open Monday in Homewood's SoHo Square. (The Birmingham News / Linda Stelter.)

“This is not the end of an era,” Lide said. “It’s the beginning of a new chapter.”

And that it is.

On Monday, after 46 years at 420 Green Springs Highway, the family-owned Italian-American eatery is scheduled to open in its new location in downtown Homewood’s SoHo Square, moving into the former Grey House Grille space.

And just to make sure his longtime customers know how to find it, Lovoy placed directions to the new restaurant on the tabletops at his old place. It’s 2.3 miles to be exact.

“I want to make my clientele happy,” Lovoy said earlier this week, as workers moved the well-seasoned broiler and oven from the old restaurant into the new one. “That’s the only thing I’m nervous about right now. I just want them to come and know we’re still Lovoy’s.”

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Opens at 4 p.m.

We are moving to the new SoHo Square.

Word had gotten out on the street for a while, but earlier this week, Zac Lovoy confirmed his plans to move Homewood’s venerable Lovoy’s Italian restaurant from its longtime home on Green Springs Highway to a new location in SoHo Square.

“We are going to celebrate the old with the new,” Lovoy said.

A fixture on Green Springs since 1964, Lovoy’s will take over the former location of the Grey House Grille, which went out of business last fall.

Lovoy, the grandson of founder Frank Lovoy Sr., said he looked at other locations in the Wildwood and BrookHighland shopping centers over the years, but the SoHo spot felt right the first time he set foot in there.

“It just seemed like a fit,” he said.

At the new location, Lovoy’s will open for lunch and will offer outside seating and live music. Seating capacity will nearly double to about 200 guests.

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(The Birmingham News/Beverly Taylor)

The developers of SoHo Square believe a local, established Italian restaurant is the missing ingredient for the $60 millionHomewood development.

Cyprus Partners signed Lovoy’s restaurant to one of the largest vacancies in SoHo Square on Wednesday, filling the void left by the closed Grey House Grille.

Scott Bryant, principal with Cyprus, said he and partner Bubba Smith turned away other possible tenants to get Lovoy’s in the vacant spot.

“With the large amount of interest we had in the space, our agenda was to really take a look at what would work and what SoHo really needed,” Bryant said. “With Lovoy’s, we are getting a successful business that has been established for 55 years and has a proven track record. We really feel like it gives us the right mix.”

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(The Birmingham News / Beverly Taylor)

Lovoy’s Italian restaurant, a Homewood treasure where teenagers have taken prom dates and old married folks have celebrated golden anniversaries, is leaving the Green Springs Highway location the Lovoy family has called home since 1964 to move into swankier, roomier digs in SoHo Square.

“It’s time to grow,” Zac Lovoy, the restaurant’s third-generation owner, said Tuesday. “It’s what we’ve wanted to do as a family for a long time — to take the next step and see what we can do with Lovoy’s beyond 420 Green Springs Highway.”

Lovoy’s will take over the former location of the Grey House Grille, which closed last September after nearly four years in downtown Homewood’s SoHo development. Lovoy plans to sign his new lease today.

The restaurant will close its Green Springs location in late April to make the transition for an early May opening in SoHo, Lovoy said.

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in the days before the pasta chains had a firm hold here, there were a number of old-school, home-owned Italian restaurants in town where you could go to enjoy a good Italian meal served in an unstudied, mid-century-Birmingham-Italian atmosphere. The lighting was dim, the spaghetti sauce pungent, the prices and portions reasonable, and the waitresses called you “Hon.”…

…Lovoy’s has been in business on Green Springs Highway for about 50 years, according to the menu on its Web site, and the ambiance and menu — including Italian pasta specialties, pizzas, seafood, steaks, and their “specialty of the house” appetizer, Baked Oysters Lovoy — remain intact.

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LOVOY’S, [ 420 Green Springs Highway ]

Runners-up: Leonardo’s (2520 Rocky Ridge Road), Bongiorno (68 Church St., Crestline)

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LOVOY’S, [ 420 Green Springs Highway ]

Runners-up: Leonardo’s (2520 Rocky Ridge Road), Bongiorno (68 Church St., Crestline)

[Click Here To veiw entire Reader's Choice Awards]

Our fascination with food eaten away from home is well-documented. According to the National Restaurant Association, an average household spends $2,137 on food eaten away from home each year.

That amounts to more than $850 per person and nearly $180 per month. Those expenditures include dining out at fine restaurants, fast-food establishments, private clubs and cafeterias.

Birmingham’s dining favorites include Hot & Hot Fish Club, Bright Star, Mauby’s, Bottega and, of course, Highlands Bar and Grill. We also have Jim ‘N Nick’s, Milo’s, Dreamland (with its fabulous slabs), Lovoy’s Italian and the hearty “meat and three” at Niki’s West. We enjoy an occasional Krispy Kreme glazed dougnut (or dozen), lattés at Starbucks and sinfully yummy ice cream at Cold Stone Creamery.

Simply, we eat away from home a lot and much more than did our parents and certainly our grandparents. Based on the numbers, we are eating pretty well. Our restaurants’ bottom lines show that; but, the numbers are going up on our scales as pounds and waistlines as inches as well. Our eating-away-from home addiction has been fueled by more than simply a “hunger for the high life.”

Read more: Eating out now a quick and casual business – Birmingham Business Journal