Robert and Deeanne Fonti, the much-loved owners of Salina at Belmont, are selling up and moving on.
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Having spent their working lives in customer service, they simply say "it's time".
Deeanne, a chef, and Robert, who works front of house, opened Salina on the Pacific Highway at Belmont South in 2003 and seven years later relocated to Belmont, about a kilometre north.
They met while working at Potts Point restaurant Mezzaluna in 1995. She was a fourth-year apprentice chef, originally from Forbes, and he was a restaurant manager.
"I always thought chefs were socially inadequate and then I ended up marrying one, how funny is that?," Robert said, laughing.
"No, look, she's lovely, but I'm definitely front of house. I keep her away from the customers."
When I mention Robert's sense of humour to Deeane over the phone later that day, she laughs.
"He's funny until about lunchtime. My children said to me once 'How do you put up with him all day Mum?' and I said 'It's called doing opposite shifts'."
Robert plans to retire ("I've just turned 60, it's time to do something else") and spend more time at his late father's house at Salina, one of the Aeolian islands north of Sicily.
"Both my parents are Italian. Dad was from Salina and Mum was from Rome," he said.
"All my misspent youth was on that island, and I inherited my dad's house there.
"It's not overrun by tourists as it's a bit off the beaten track, and not a lot of development is allowed. You're not allowed to build on virgin land there, can you believe it?
"I don't know exactly what I'm going to do when I retire but I'm looking forward to it. I'll take a breath and do something different."
After moving to Swansea Heads in 2000, the couple commuted to and from their Pennant Hills restaurant, Scoozi, for three years.
"People thought we were mad, driving an hour to work each way, but we wanted to live near the water," Robert said.
"There were only three sets of traffic lights between Swansea and Sydney back then. Isn't that crazy?"
They decided to open a restaurant closer to home following the birth of their two children.
"Our Belmont South restaurant was tiny. It had 28 seats inside and this big outdoor area with a tarp on a pole and I'd running around when it rained, emptying it of water," Robert said.
"We did the best we could on a shoestring budget.
"People thought we were a fancy restaurant when we moved to Belmont because we had tablecloths."
He reckons about 70 per cent of Salina's customers are locals - and regulars - who love their pizzas, pastas and salad. People tend to visit on Fridays and Saturdays for special occasions.
"There's three of us in the business, Karl Foxe has been with us since the beginning. He does all the sauces and the prep during the day.
"The bolognese recipe is the same as it's been since 2003. It's very consistent and people love that.
"We've had lots of families visit which we've watched grow up, different generations. One of our waitresses married one of our apprentice chefs and they're still together, with kids."
Salina has also been a stepping stone for scores of young Lake Macquarie jobseekers, both in the kitchen and front of house.
"We've hired a lot of young people over the years as there's not many people who are professionals in the hospitality business up here, not like in Europe," Robert said.
"Our second chef Lydia did her apprenticeship with us, went away to work and then came back. She's been with us 10 years now."
Deeanne has no plans to retire just yet ("He's retiring, I'm 10 years younger," she said, laughing) but is looking forward to hanging up her chef's apron.
"It's time to move on and try something new. I've been a chef for 35 years and it's a tough gig; long shifts, long hours on your feet," she explained.
"We used to work insanely long hours but we loved it. It was our lifestyle. But I just can't stand up for 10 to 12 hours any more.
"We've had four restaurants in total and we've had a great time ... I don't think there's anything we wanted to do that we didn't."
They were toying with the idea of selling the business in 2019 when the pandemic unexpectedly hit.
"We were looking at an exit strategy and then COVID came and we just knuckled down. We stayed open all the way through," she said.
"The kids came home and worked for us as well, we did takeaway, but it was relentless. Every day was a new adventure, so to speak, but we just did it."
I ask her what she will look fondly upon, when the business does sell.
"Rob's such a great front man and we've met some great people along the way, we've had some great staff," she replied.
"We're really proud to offer hospitality as we think hospitality should be.
"Rob being the face to meet and greet people, to offer full table service. We enjoy that. It's our way of life, I mean, we're at the restaurant more than we're at home. It's like 'welcome to our home. what would you like to eat'?
"We've always tried to provide quality at a reasonable price point. Most of our customers are locals, and we have to look after them or they won't come back."
But for now, it's business at usual. Salina has just launched its new winter menu and is selling takeaway cocktails for $11. There's a pizza and pasta special on the menu nightly.
