Elizabeth Township’s R-Place celebrates 35 years

Operated by Rus and Kim Svec, the restaurant provides catering services and hosts parties.

Why fuss … call Chef Rus.

For the past 35 years , that’s been the slogan for R-Place Event Venue, Restaurant, Catering and Bakery, located at 102 Enterprise St. in Elizabeth Township.

A memory wall of the past 35 years is shown in R-Place Event Venue, Restaurant, Catering and Bakery. Sarah Pellis / MVI

Celebrating its 35-year anniversary Dec. 1, 2025, executive chef Rus Svec and his wife Kim Svec, who are Elizabeth Township residents, along with the rest of their family said they are very blessed and thankful for the continued support from the community.

Rus went through a McKeesport-area culinary arts program and has worked in multiple restaurants around the area since 1980.

Married to Kim since 1983, Rus opened the family business on Dec. 1, 1990 after working his way up to executive chef at The Lemon Tree Restaurant, at 623 Long Run Rd in McKeesport before it closed in 1987.

“I’ve always liked cooking, and it was always my passion,” Rus said.

In 1990, their daughter was about 4 years old, and since Rus was never home while working in restaurants, they went into business for themselves.

Their first restaurant location was up the street from where they are now. It lasted until 1996 when they moved to their current location, which Kim’s father owned.

“At that point, my mom and dad became partners with us because he owned the property, and we put the building up,” Kim said. “We’ve been doing this ever since.”

Kim worked for Bettis Atomic Power Laboratory in West Mifflin for 43 years. She retired right after the pandemic, but always found a way to help out at the restaurant.

She thanks Bettis for helping their business for so many years.

The couple has learned to work together over the years, and stick to their areas of the restaurant — with Rus in the kitchen and Kim in the front chatting with customers.

“As long as we stay in our respective areas, we are good,” Kim said. “Our employees kind of laugh because we always come to an agreement at the end. It kind of works.”

Over the years, they started hosting parties for people, and they did renovations right when the pandemic hit.

“We weren’t allowed to have parties, we weren’t allowed to do anything,” Kim said of the COVID-19 experience. “So we took the time to remodel. We brought the carpeting in, we brought in new floors because there was nothing else to do. We were just able to do take out.”

Once the pandemic was over, they were able to host weddings, baby showers, funerals and more.

A couple Penn State-themed tiles on the ceiling and a wall full of pictures decorate the restaurant, but the place can transform to whatever the customer is looking for, according to Kim.

Kim also said parties were taking off around the pandemic. They changed to being now on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays because they have so many parties that come in and not as many chefs or staff to work them.

Rus said the restaurant hosts 25 to 100 people, which he said people find to be a nice size for parties.

“We’re booked many weekends, and a lot of showers are early on Saturdays, and we still do dinners at night, and we’ll have baby showers on Sundays,” Kim said. “We try to handle as much as we can for the customer so that it’s worth it for them. We set it all up for them, and we do it all.”

“We know most of (our customers) 95% of them by name,” Rus added. “They’re loyal customers, and we are only open a few days a week, but we see them a couple days a week.”

According to Rus, more people who are new in the township discover them than the ones who have lived there for 20 years, and they get customers from all over.

The Svecs said the past five years is when everything really took off for them. Kim said it’s because of word of mouth and recommendations from people.

In recent months, they’ve had a limited regular menu due to a shortage of staff in the kitchen over the busy holiday season and the increasing costs of food. They recently hired some new employees to help with that. They also have three waitresses and some who help for funerals.

The regular menu consists of many different entrees, pizzas, specialty salads and more. Prices range from cups of soup at $4.59 to some entrees at $18.

Rus recommended people try their homemade pierogies that are made from scratch, adding that he tries to make everything fresh. Kim recommended the chicken romano.

“At parties, our roast beef gets more comments than anything,” Rus said. “We use that same roast beef for our hot roast beef sandwiches, and we sell a ton of those.”

They also have a catering and inhouse events menus. The catering menu has a silver buffet at $21.99 per person, which includes one salad, two side entrees and two main entrees.

They also have the gold buffet at $24.99 per person with two salads, two side entrees and three main entrees in various options. There are also in-house options, including a breakfast buffet and mimosa bar where people can bring their own champagne and they have various juices to choose from.

“The food’s really good,” Kim said. “We’ve had a lot of compliments on how good the food is, and it kind of works. For being independent and being in business as long as we’ve been, we’ve been blessed.”

For New Year’s Eve, they offered a special menu with more upscale items like lobster and surf and turf.

“People were raving about it,” Kim said. “Our customers appreciate food, they appreciate what it costs and they are going to pay for it. We had not one issue, and everybody loved it and asked if we could do it for Valentine’s Day, which I think we are going to do.”

There’s no ordering online, and the Svecs try to be in the restaurant as much as they possibly can.

“I like that personal touch. I like to deal with the person personally,” Kim said. “I think that makes them feel more comfortable when they are dealing with the owner, and they aren’t dealing with someone that isn’t going to be here next week. We’re old school.”

A lot of customers have become friends of the family over the years, and Kim’s dad was always a mainstay of the restaurant before he passed away. People also make community tables for those who normally dine alone so they can eat together.

“There isn’t a whole lot of profit in small industries like restaurants,” Kim added. “We are working off a very small profit margin, so you have to enjoy it. You have to like the customer base that comes in. We love our customers, to be honest. They’re supportive, and we built that up.”

Everything has come full circle with the Svecs’ daughter, who also works at Bettis, coming to help when she can with her own daughter, who brings customers to their table with Kim’s help. The Svecs’ daughter also had another grandchild on Dec. 1, 2025 – the same day as the anniversary.

They also have hired the children of kids they hired back in 1990, and it has become generations of people working together and coming to the restaurant.

The Svecs have also had former employees come back and thank them. They try to teach everyone who comes through their restaurant everything they can.

“It’s a safe environment for your kids to work because we are always here,” Kim said. “Nobody is going to be bullied, picking on them because we are always here. Female employees are not here alone either.”

Rus said it’s the friendships that have got them through the business, and each other. They live, eat and breathe the business.

“It’s just the turnover that you keep seeing the same people over and over again that makes you feel like you are part of this community,” Kim said. “We really have a great community. We lived here, we raised our kid here, we have a business here.

“It’s easier now because our building is paid off, and if it becomes an aggravation, then we won’t do it anymore, but we really enjoy it.”

Anyone interested in booking a party can call 412-751-8101 or go to rplacepgh.com.