Restaurant at New Kensington Quality Inn reopens as Leo’s Roadhouse

It has been about a decade since the restaurant inside New Kensington’s Quality Inn shut down.

Dan Leo is hoping to bring it back as he opens Leo’s Roadhouse with the help of Chef Lenny Verosky. Together, they face the challenge of bringing people through the hotel’s doors not for a room, but for a meal.

“I like challenges, trying to revive something that was here a long time ago,” Verosky said.

The new restaurant, which opened Jan. 12, is in the hotel off Tarentum Bridge Road, next to Giant Eagle.

“It’s going to be the area’s best-kept secret,” Leo said.

The dinner menu of Leo’s Roadhouse features soups and salads, hand-cut steaks, ribs, seafood and poultry. Dishes such as country fried steak, fried shrimp, country fried chicken and pulled barbecue pork are found under “country specials.”

Entree prices range from about $15 to $29 for an 8-ounce filet or a 16-ounce ribeye, including sides.

But the menu may not show everything Verosky will be cooking.

“If you don’t see it on the menu, he’ll make it,” Leo said.

The restaurant at the hotel operated under several names over the years — Johnny B’s in its heyday, The Clubhouse, The Down Under Steakhouse and, again, The Clubhouse — and last went by The Kensington when it closed about a decade ago.

Leo and his wife, Brenda, have been running food and beverage at the hotel, including banquets and the Sports Page bar, for about seven years. They were using the restaurant space for storage.

“We wanted to open a restaurant, and then covid hit. That killed that whole idea,” Leo said.

Brenda Leo has long dreamed of reopening the restaurant. She worked at the hotel as a cocktail waitress in the early 1980s.

“From the first day when we walked in there, she’s always pictured having a nice restaurant there. It’s just something she’s always wanted to do,” he said. “She’s been in this business basically her whole life. She was a cocktail waitress there when she was 18 when it was Johnny B’s. Now it has come full circle being the owner now.”

A chef since the 1970s, Verosky, 71, was raised in Bethel Park and lives in West View. Alle-Kiski Valley residents might know him from his previous work at Hill Crest Country Club and the Lower Burrell Veterans of Foreign Wars post.

“This is the last hurrah for me,” Verosky said. “I’m not going to do any more.”

Verosky prepared food for the Thanksgiving buffet that returned to the hotel last year. An annual event that had been gone for more than a decade, it sold out, with some diners coming based, in part, on Verosky’s culinary reputation.

Leo is hopeful that’s going to help the restaurant.

“Lenny has quite a large following,” Leo said. “A lot will naturally follow him.”

Asked what his signature dish would be, Verosky pointed to his scrod florentine, barbecue and filet. Everything he makes is from scratch, with nothing frozen.

“I do a little bit of everything,” he said.

Verosky said barbecue is a specialty for him.

“That’s the easiest thing to cook,” he said. “You put it on and you forget about it.”

Dinner hours will be from 5 to 9 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays. Sunday brunch is served from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

They plan to expand to lunch hours in February as they get staff hired and trained. Lunch hours will be from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday, when the restaurant will close until reopening for dinner at 5 p.m.

In the summer, they plan to have an outdoor tiki bar with sand, music and palm trees.

“There’s a lot of surprises to come,” Verosky said.

Because the restaurant seats only 90 people, they recommend diners to make reservations.

“If it picks up, we’re not as big as other restaurants,” Verosky said. “To guarantee a seat, it’s just a phone call away.”