S’ghetti To Go keeps pasta simple
- Tina Parker and son, Rycher, of S’ghetti To Go in Layton.
- The Lone — a single serving of spaghetti with meatballs and garlic bread at S’ghetti To Go in Layton.
Tina Parker wanted to keep her eatery simple.
Meals to-go — no sit-down service.
One pasta choice — spaghetti noodles.
“I didn’t want a complicated menu where customers might have a hard time deciding what they want, and I’d have to carry a lot of product,” Parker said.
Also, since she would be hiring teenage staffers to work with her, she wanted a menu they could easily prepare.
She called it S’Ghetti To Go, “because growing up, a lot of kids say, ‘sketti.’ And I wanted people to know it was ‘to go.'”
Parker has gradually expanded the menu since opening a year and a half ago in Layton’s Fort Lane Shopping Center near WinCo Foods. Now, there are four sauces, three meat choices, three sandwiches and four desserts. But spaghetti noodles are still the only type of pasta offered, “because I didn’t want a ton of waste,” Parker said.
This is Parker’s first foray into the food industry, but she gained business experience from working in real estate and in running a heating and air conditioning company with her husband, Chris Parker.
“Processes are a big deal to me,” she said. “We had to make sure our processes were in place from the very beginning. It takes a minute to figure out what works and what doesn’t. I’ve learned to collaborate with others in the food business and take bits and pieces of what they do and incorporate them.”
She realized there were plenty of other places selling sandwiches, pizza and burgers.
“But nothing for spaghetti. And my kids love my spaghetti,” she said.
To come up with their master marinara recipe, the Parkers created many versions and went through local parking lots asking people to taste them and vote for their favorite. They ended up with a thick, rich classic marinara.
At first, Parker was only going to offer marinara sauce, but then she decided to add Alfredo (called Fredo). Then, one of her daughters suggested mixing the Alfredo and marinara sauce together to come up with Al Mary, a creamy cross between the two.
Then they decided to add a cheesy pesto sauce. It’s nut-free, “to avoid allergies for the public,” Parker said. Known as Al Pesto, it has a strong basil flavor of regular pesto mixed with creamy Alfredo.
In the beginning, she wasn’t going to offer sandwiches, but then she decided to do a meatball sub.
“But we wanted something different that would set us apart,” she said.
The Parkers found it while attending food shows, where they tried a balsamic onion jam and a habanero bacon jam. These became their sandwich spreads. Most customers choose the habanero bacon flavor.
“It’s got a little bit of a kick,” Parker said.
The Parkers then came up with their signature S’ghetti sandwich — ciabatta bread spread with garlic butter, a choice of jam, choice of sauce, spaghetti noodles and you can add a meat option. Yes, it’s spaghetti in a sandwich.
“At first, nobody knew what it was, but as word of mouth spread, it’s possibly our most popular sandwich,” Parker said.
“The Lone” is the most popular option — a generous serving of pasta noodles, choice of sauce and garlic bread for $10.25. You can add chicken, meatballs or sliced spicy Italian sausage for $1.75 extra.
The Italian sausage was another add-on to the original menu.
“We introduced a limited-time spicy Italian sausage to see how it would do, and ended up keeping it,” Parker said.
“The Monster” is a family-size meal, featuring three different sauces and enough pasta to feed four to five people for $32. It’s more popular in the evening when people are taking it home for an easy dinner.
In the near future, Parker plans to add spaghetti-in-a-cone. Her daughter saw the idea on Tik-Tok, and it’s popular at fairs in the East, she said. Parker’s version starts with a flatbread, spread with garlic and light cheese, rolled into a cone, then stuffed with spaghetti noodles, meat and cheese.
Parker says that customer service is the number one priority. She credits her staff in that effort.
“I’ve been fortunate to have the employees that I have,” she said. “I’ve kept many of them for at least a year, some from the beginning.”
As a “to go” eatery, it uses Door Dash, UberEats and Grub Hub, as well as ordering on the https://www.sghettitogo.com website to pick up at the store.
“We also offer catering, and I’d like to ramp that up,” Parker said.
IF YOU GO
S’ghetti To Go
Location: 210 S. Fort Lane, Layton
Contact: https://www.sghettitogo.com or 385-303-9698
Prices: $6.50-$12 for individual meal or sandwiches
Hours: 11 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. Monday-Thursday; 11 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. Friday-Saturday; noon to 7:30 p.m. Sunday