El Toro restaurant coming to Winchendon - why is it leaving Fitchburg?

The bull is coming to Toy Town.

The owners of El Toro, the popular upscale Fitchburg steakhouse, said they would soon be moving their restaurant – complete with a revamped, family-friendly menu – to the former Carriage House restaurant at 660 Spring St. in Winchendon.

Leslie and Roberto Colon, who opened El Toro two years ago, said their restaurant on River Street was an immediate success.

“The idea behind opening (El Toro) was to have something locally so that we didn’t have to travel to Worcester or Boston or any other big city to be able to get a nice steak, especially with our jobs we didn’t have the capability of driving an hour to Boston then taking an hour to come home – we wanted a neighborhood family restaurant that was a little upscale,” Leslie said.

The Colons, who cut their eatery teeth as partial owners of the Game On Restaurant Bar and Grill in Fitchburg, said the popularity of El Toro demonstrated that there was a desire for an upscale restaurant in the area.

“Realistically, we were testing the area to see if a restaurant of this calibre would draw people into Fitchburg, and it did, and not just Fitchburg but the surrounding communities,” said Roberto. “We carved our own niche because there weren’t any high-end steak restaurants nearby. Within a 20-mile radius, there was nothing.”

Former Carriage House location offers plenty of parking, traffic

Satisfied that the public would support their establishment, the couple decided they had outgrown their original location and began searching for a new site for their restaurant. When they learned that the former Carriage House was available, they immediately made an offer to purchase the site.

“We were really fortunate that this (location) came up and was available, because it is a high-traffic area, and we’ll have cars going into Rindge and Jaffrey and other populated areas, and I think that (will attract) people traveling to Worcester or Leominster – they can stop here and get some quality food,” Roberto said.

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The new location’s large kitchen and 140-seating capacity will allow El Toro to expand its menu to include Italian and French cuisine and more family-friendly items, in addition to steak dishes. (The owners are dropping "Steakhouse" from the new restaurant's name.)

“We’d love to turn around and have a pasta dinner for six that’s affordable so families can come in and enjoy an evening out without breaking the bank,” Roberto said. “Because we have a bigger space, we can now turn around and have chicken dinners and fish dinners and spaghetti dinners and hamburgers.”

“(The menu) is not going to be exclusively steak,” Leslie said. “We are expanding to comfort food, and we’ll have rotating specials to try to fit everybody’s comfort zone.

New restaurant scheduled to open by June

Motorists would begin to see the new El Toro sign go up within a week or so, he said. The restaurant is scheduled to open in June.

“It all depends on the liquor license, but if the liquor license comes back in the middle of May, we’ll open in the middle of May,” he said.

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Town Manager Bill McKinney said the town was excited to welcome El Toro to the community.

“They have developed a great reputation at their previous location, and (they’ll) have a great location on one of the main roads in town,” he said. “This is another great dining option for the residents as well as for those who visit Winchendon to take advantage of our recreational opportunities and events at the amphitheater.”

Roberto said he was grateful to be welcomed to the community, calling Winchendon a “business-friendly town.”

El Toro’s entire 15-person Fitchburg staff will be employed at the new location, according to Roberto. He said the restaurant would be open six days a week to start, the goal of being open for lunch and dinner all week. He also said he was interested in possibly adding an outdoor seating area in the future.

This article originally appeared on Gardner News: El Toro restaurant to open in Winchendon at former Carriage House