Morgantown Dominion Post
11 July 2007
By Cynthia McCloud
POINT MARION, Pa. - A 15-minute drive or a 60-minute boat ride from Morgantown, Two Rivers Marina sits on a riverbank, tucked back in the trees off Pa. 88.
A family business, Two Rivers started as a campground and marina, which still exist alongside the restaurant. The eatery is open year-round and though 80 percent of customers arrive by car, some choose to boat up the Monongahela River from Morgantown and dock during the boating season. Jason DeProspero/The Dominion Post photos
Don Strimbeck, of Granville, makes the trip regularly by boat during the season and by car in winter [the restaurant is open yearround]. It's something he and his friends have done since 1999.
"This is a good place to go to," Strimbeck said. "Herman [Gugliotta] has an excellent chef [Larry Comberiati] and he himself is a very good chef.
"We've eaten probably half of what he has on [the menu]," he said. "There is no bad food there."
Owner Herman Gugliotta
Owner Herman Gugliotta said when he was opening the dine-in restaurant in 1994, he and his wife Marita chose familiar foods for the menu.
"It's a menu of stuff we knew how to cook and like to eat," he said. "It reflects the kind of dining I grew up with."
"His prime rib roast beef is great," Strimbeck said. "That's available on Friday and Saturday evenings. So we usually try to hit that and we're there for a couple of hours then boat back down to Granville."
"We hand-stuff the prime rib with garlic and season with Italian herbs and coarse salt and slow-roast," Gugliotta said.
It's novel to reach the restaurant by boat, but Gugliotta says 80 percent of the restaurant's business arrives by Pa. 88. And it's not just the people who park RVs at the campground near the confluence of Monongahela and Cheat rivers.
The prime rib also comes sliced atop sliced Italian bread with french fries or mashed potatoes and gravy and on toasted Italian bread with American cheese, sauteed green peppers and onion.
"Prime rib is the house specialty and the most popular dinner entree," Gugliotta said. "But we do a really good job with pasta and seafood dishes."
Also popular are the seafood alfredo pasta - shrimp, scallops and crab meat tossed with pasta in alfredo sauce - and the seafood sauté - shrimp and scallops sauteed in garlic butter and lemon served on a bed of linguine.
Chef Larry Comberiati garnishes a plate of seafood alfredo pasta.
On the menu too are barbecued chicken and ribs; tilapia in more than one form - baked, stuffed with crab meat and blackened topped with shrimp and alfredo sauce; steaks and pork chops.
"Almost everything we do is scratch cooking," Gugliotta said. "The mushrooms and zucchini [on the appetizer menu] are egg-dipped and hand-breaded, not the typical frozen prepared product. The chicken parmesan we hand-bread and brown off and bake."
Marita occasionally makes a fresh homemade dessert.
The restaurant has full beverage service.
Two Rivers Marina
LOCATION: Pa. 88 across the river from Point Marion, Pa.; left
descending bank (west, or Greene County, Pa., side of the
Monongahela River), about 2.2 miles north of Point Marion lock
and dam
PHONE: (724) 943-4997
HOURS: 4-9:30 p.m. Thursday; 11 a.m.-9:30 p.m. Friday-Saturday;
11 a.m.-8:30 p.m. Sunday
PARKING: private lot for cars and 65 dock slips for boats
ATTIRE: casual