Waco businessman Tom Wright travels Interstate 35 almost weekly, craving the lasagna and the crab fondue at Pignetti’s Italian Restaurant in Temple. “Waco needs something like this, a high-class, upper-end, five-star restaurant,” said Wright, whose construction company bears his name.

Heeding his own advice, Wright persuaded Pignetti’s owner Clinton Harrell to consider a second location about 30 miles up the interstate, in the former Phoenix Ballroom on South Third Street that Wright recently acquired.