A new Italian restaurant featuring the same owner as another local eatery — as well as a wood-burning oven built atop a Fiat 500 car and an outdoor bar fashioned out of an Italian truck — has opened its doors. Osteria 500 is now open at 1580 Lakefront Drive in Waterside Place, the Lakewood Ranch development in Sarasota County.

The new restaurant's owners include Giuseppe Del Sole, who also owns the Italian restaurant Napulè in Sarasota, and formerly Made in Italy in Venice. Carmine Ussano, another one of Osteria 500's owners, said he and Del Sole are longtime friends and were looking at opening a restaurant together. Ussano also used to live in Lakewood Ranch, and when he learned of Waterside Place, he met the developers, then contacted Del Sole.