For five years, vegetarian Wayne Andrews ordered his favorite pasta dish at his favorite restaurant and wondered what delectable secret ingredient made the sauce so good.
Workers at Pasta Jay's swore never to reveal what was used to make the restaurant's popular marinara sauce.Andrews, a Boulder County deputy sheriff, stumbled upon the secret after reading in a newspaper that the sauce can be made with anchovy paste. He started asking questions, and the chef revealed that anchovies were in fact the secret ingredient.
On Tuesday, Magistrate Terence Hunter ordered Pasta Jay owner Jay Elowsky to pay Andrews $463.24 for the meals, plus $14 in court taxes.
Elowsky argued that in Italian, "marinara" means "from the sea." But Andrews brought in a store-bought sample and a dictionary to show that some marinara sauces contain no meat at all.
The magistrate ruled that Andrews, a strict vegetarian for 24 years, had been misled.
"It's kind of bizarre, wouldn't you say?" Elowsky asked. "Only in Boulder, Colorado."
Elowsky offered to prepare a meatless version for Andrews in the future, but the deputy said he's lost his appetite for his once-beloved dish.
"As a member of the vegetarian community," he said, "I will never go into your restaurant again."