After nearly 40 years in a Newbury Park shopping center, Roma Italian Deli & Restaurant isn’t going anywhere. But the owner for most of that time is. Philip Hariot bought the business in the late 1980s, when the dining room was a market filled with shelves bearing Italian wines, olive oils and packaged pastas. Now, after three decades of preparing marinara and house-made pastas, filling in when the dishwasher calls in sick and guiding Roma into the age of Yelp, Hariot is getting ready to hand over the keys to the restaurant’s new owner.

The change will happen sometime next week, leaving Hariot just a few more days to say arrivederci to patrons. “A lot of local kids worked here when they were going to Newbury Park High School. Now some of them come in and they’re almost grandparents. It’s time,” said Hariot, who has grandchildren of his own, with another on the way in Texas.