A pipe burst in the vacant apartment above Hula Hotties Cafe during the freeze last month and flooded the little restaurant. It’s been closed since then.

But husband-and-wife owners Jill Inforzato and Roger Simpson are taking the opportunity to change concepts.

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“Our spaghetti has been so popular, so I thought, let’s take a dive and make it a little hole-in-the-wall Italian place,” Inforzato says.

Inforzato’s family owned an Italian restaurant in Minnesota for almost 100 years, starting in 1913, she says. And she will use some of those old family recipes in the new restaurant, Inforzato’s Italian Cafe and Bakery.

Inforzato’s will still sell the Hula Hotties hot sauces — a venture the couple came up with in Hawaii, where they lived for many years. And they will still offer the same salad dressings, the four-cheese macaroni, cheese bread, and of course, spaghetti and meatballs, which had been the $6 Thursday special at Hula Hotties.

The new restaurant could be open as early as March 17, but they are doing a lot of construction, and such projects often run behind schedule.

Simpson and Inforzato hired Oak Cliff-based Solid Signs to make the front of their restaurant more visible.

“He’s come up with something really theatrical for us,” Inforzato says. “It’s almost like a movie theater facade.”