In case you haven’t been following Amanda Codispoti’s retail news blog within the past week or so, I’d like to point you in the direction of a few food-related news items she’s had.

1. There is another new Italian restaurant in downtown Roanoke, this one located in the former Zak’s Cafe location on Campbell Avenue SW. It is called Leonore. Here’s Amanda’s report on the ownership of the restaurant. She brought me a menu so I thought I’d flesh out the options a bit more for you all:

* Appetizers (includes bruschetta, cheese bread and “Italian nachos,” which are chips made with pizza dough and topped with a green pepper, onion and meat sauce and cheddar cheese). Price range: $3.99 to $6.99.
* Subs (includes cheeseburger, Italian, turkey, ham and cheese, Philly, meatball) are all $5.99. Menu does not indicate that they come with any kind of a side item.
* Pasta (includes florentine, chicken macaroni, chicken alfredo, meatball, spaghetti, and beef, chicken or veggie lasagna). Prices $6.99 for meatless spaghetti to $8.99 for most of the rest.
* Pizza, stromboli and calzone (Margarita, Mediterranean, meat lover, veggie lover, supreme, and others). Calzones, $7; stromboli, $7; pizza, $7.50 for small, $12.50 for large, $3.50 per slice. They also have build your own pizzas that start at $4.99 for small cheese, $8.99 for large cheese and $2.25 for a cheese slice with toppings ranging from 75 cents to $1.75 apiece. Build your own calzones and stromboli start at $5.50 for cheese only.
* Salads (Caesar, Mediterranean, garden), $4.99.
* Desserts (tres leches cake, cognac cake, cannoli and tiramisu), $3.99.

What do you think of this menu? Does downtown Roanoke have room for another Italian restaurant? Perhaps this one will do OK because it’s located a bit outside of the heart of downtown, close to the court houses, police and sheriff’s departments, etc.

2. Amanda reports that a lot of people are hearing rumors of a Cook-Out restaurant coming to Roanoke. You may recall that the NRV recently became home to Cook-Out. Amanda’s working to confirm these rumors but so far has not had much luck.

Click “Read more” for additional food news.

3. Mirko Pasta is finally going to open at Towers Mall this fall if all goes as planned. A reader recently asked me where she can find homemade pasta in the Roanoke Valley (besides somebody’s home). There should be homemade pasta at Mirko, but it is also featured at some of the more artisenal restaurants in town (Local Roots, Blue Apron, River & Rail) from time to time so if you are also interested, you may wish to keep an eye on their ever-changing menus. If you know of any other places to find homemade pasta, please clue us in.

4. As reported in Amanda’s Retail Roundup column this past weekend, Roanoke Bagel Company is moving across the street and expanding. They do great bagels so this is good news for our area. Also, Salem is getting its own microbrewery, Parkway Brewing Co., which will be owned by Mike “Keno” Snyder and his wife, Lezlie Snyder. This brewery joins our other local craft breweries, Big Daddy’s Brewing Co. and Roanoke Railhouse Brewery.

Thanks to Amanda for hustling on this restaurant news while I was out of town so everybody hungry for the food scoop could stay satiated.

And speaking of all the food things buzzing in Southwest Virginia, please don’t forget to add your two cents to the previous blog post about the best food finds in SWVa. We made up a list of 50 back in 2008, but as you can imagine it is high time to update that list! There have already been some great suggestions from our fellow foodies. Join the conversation!