Jay Elowsky grew up in the suburbs of Detroit. Restless and ready to explore life on the West Coast, he moved to Southern California and took a job washing dishes for his Aunt Kathy and Uncle Sonny, proprietors of “Sonny’s Pizza” in San Clemente.

After a year of hitting the books at CU Boulder, Jay realized the restaurant business was where his heart was. He returned to Uncle Sonny’s kitchen—learning to cook and spending the next six years perfecting the family recipes that had been passed down to him by his mother “MaMa Genovese”, whose grandmother was cook for the first King of the United Countries of Italy, Victor Emanuel the Second.

With dreams to open his own restaurant, he settled back in Boulder. In September of 1988, Jay and his Mom (Jean) and Dad (Lowell) opened the first “Pasta Jay’s” at 9th and Pearl.

Now almost three decades later—besides the Boulder eatery there are Pasta Jay’s in Lone Tree, Moab and a Kansas City location opening soon.

Proud of his culinary heritage—Jay enthusiastically states, “generations later we still use our family recipes to create food fit for a king!”