What Happened to Valentino's and Italian Bistro? (Summerville, SC)

Restaurant: Impossible (Food Network) traveled to Summerville, South Carolina for "Double Trouble," which aired March 25, 2015, and marked the first time the series tackled two restaurants in a single episode. The businesses, Valentino's and Italian Bistro, sat roughly six miles apart and were run separately by a father and son: Frank operated Italian Bistro, and his son Frankie later opened Valentino's hoping to build on the family's momentum. Within about a year, Valentino's began struggling as well, prompting host Robert Irvine to address both locations during the same visit.

At Valentino's, at 1990 Old Trolley Road, Irvine's design team found mismatched flooring between dining areas, a deteriorating ceiling, a worn bar, and dated decor throughout. The bulk of the physical renovation and kitchen retraining went into Valentino's, while Italian Bistro received a lighter cosmetic refresh. Irvine also worked with the family on menu simplification and on clarifying responsibilities between the two operations, since shared suppliers and staff had blurred the lines between the sites. Following the visit, Food Network's own episode recap reported a roughly 20 percent increase in business at Italian Bistro.

Ahead of the broadcast, a Post and Courier preview noted that filming took place in the Summerville area in January 2015 and highlighted the two-restaurant format as new for the series. Community coverage from the College of Charleston student newspaper also noted two CofC-connected siblings appeared in the episode. Restaurant-review aggregator Yelp reported the closure of the Valentino's Trattoria location at 1990 Old Trolley Road by its May 2026 listing update. No independently dated reporting on the specific timing of that closure was located during this research pass. The Italian Bistro location's current status was not independently confirmed and is outside the scope of this record, which centers on the Valentino's address that received the majority of the on-air renovation work.