Bada Bing Grill Serves Up an Odd Culinary Trifecta

Sometimes, restaurants with a loyal customer base can change and evolve their menus while staying popular. Sometimes, a place like that can even keep its name even as its identity morphs. But it’s not often that a restaurant can keep its loyal customer base and its name while adding an entirely new cuisine. That’s what has happened at Bada Bing Grill in Arvada, located off Ward Road and 58th Avenue in a blandly anonymous professional building.

A decade ago, it opened in a location that had served pizza, but as Bada Bing, it added Greek food to the mix. Its owner at the time was both Greek and Italian, and the eatery built a following for both cuisines. In late 2024, Sajal KC, an entrepreneur who has experience as an accountant and a real estate broker, took over the space. His family operates restaurants in Nepal, and earlier this year, with the help of family member Luna Thapa, Bada Bing added its newest culinary twist: Indian and Nepalese fare.

Thapa is the assistant manager and webmaster for the restaurant. She explains that when he bought the restaurant, KC decided to keep the pizza and Greek food on the menu because he had been wanting to open a pizza restaurant (pizza has high profit margins), and the gyros sandwich was the best seller.

“Last summer, the owner and his wife decided to sell the place and then move to another state,” Thapa says. “That’s why, when the restaurant was sold to Sajal, it was a Greek and Italian restaurant. So the oven and everything for the pizza existed before he took over, and because the previous owner was Greek and Italian, that’s why the restaurant served both.”

The combination has worked well, even during COVID, when takeout orders soared. Business as an Italian and Greek eatery was so good, that KC decided to keep both the name and the menu intact. “Bada bing, bada boom” had been a familiar term in Italian American slang since the 1950s, made popular by The Godfather and The Sopranos.

When KC and the new staff took over the space, the original staff stayed on for a few weeks to train them on making pizza and Italian items like calzones, and Greek specialties like the popular gyros, dolmades and keftedes (Greek meatballs). KC and the new crew (which includes a diverse staff of Italians, Latinos, Asians and South Asians) have added the Indian and Nepalese fare over time. “Because he was still working towards perfecting the Greek food and the pizzas, he didn’t want to do just scare people off with something crazy on the menu. So he just wanted to do that, see how it goes for the time being, and then add Indian food, because some people do like it.”

She says the Greek dishes account for about 60 to 70 percent of the business. “Then the rest is 20 or 15 [percent] between the pizzas and the Indian food,” Thapa notes. “On some cold days, it just goes the other way around, like people want to order either lots of pizzas or lots of Indian food, because it’s like a comfort food, yeah? They just want to do that, but not on a regular basis.”

The menu, Thapa points out, is still a work in progress. She predicts it may be officially finalized by the end of this year.

The wait should be worth it. So far, every cuisine on offer hits the taste jackpot, including some hybrid creations. The first time we visited, we ordered a custom pizza topped with gyros meat and Indian paneer cheese on a perfectly-baked pizza crust. Since the pizza oven is ideal for some Indian baking, you may see naan bread specialties served over time, along with some cultural mashups. Since chicken tikka masala (which, by the way, isn’t a traditional Indian at all, rather one invented in the UK for the British palate) is popular, Thapa hints that a chicken tikka pizza may be in the works.

Thapa says that from the start, KC envisioned a restaurant where he could serve both pizza and South Asian dishes. “He was looking for a pizza place where he could also do Indian food. But then this one already had Greek and Italian. He was kind of debating between the Greek and the Indian food. But when he took over, he saw how people love the Greek food, so he decided to keep it and not change the name or anything. It’s gonna be a huge menu,” she notes.

Everything is made in-house, including the pizza sauces and salad dressings and, of course, the South Asian menu items. “Everything’s from scratch. That’s why people like this place, because when you eat it, you can taste the care that goes into it, because we cannot just dump canned food items and make it something easier to cook for more profit, but then give them crappy food.”

She and the staff recognize many regulars. “Yep, we know half of our customers,” Thapa says. And the newbies who stumble across Bada Bing from word of mouth or social media are often puzzled about the location. “People call me all the time. They’re like, where are you guys? Yeah, we’re in the nondescript office building that looks like it should be doctors’ office or something, exactly,” she admits. “People think it’s a school or something. It doesn’t even look like a strip mall.”

Still, customers find their way to Bada Bing. And once they try it, Thapa says she hopes they’ll come back. It’s worth the trip.

Bada Bing Grill is located at 12500 West 58th Avenue in Arvada and is open from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. Tuesday and Wednesday, 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Thursday and Sunday, 10 a.m. to 11 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, and 10:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday. For more information, visit badabinggrill.com.