Man’s mission to visit every Old Spaghetti Factory in the world makes final stop in Sask.

Andrew Mancini remembers the first moment he twirled his fork into pasta from the Old Spaghetti Factory at the age of 10 in southern California.

Since then, the 22-year-old pasta lover from San Francisco has made it his mission to visit every franchise location in the United States, Canada and Japan.

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“People try to make an attempt to visit every state, national park, football stadium or baseball stadium and this is just a slightly non conventional take on a similar challenge,” he said.

Over the last 12 years Mancini has checked off every location listed on the restaurant’s placemat he once collected, which originally featured 45 locations and has since grown to 62.

From Tennessee, United States, to Kobe, Japan, and Whistler, British Columbia, he will check his final box in Saskatoon on Sunday night.

Mancini noted that getting to the prairies is a challenging destination to get to from San Francisco.

“I think the biggest selling point for me in Canada is discovering these hidden gems. It seemed most fitting to kind of capture that spirit (in) Saskatoon,” Mancini said, adding the city is home to one of the chain’s newest locations.

Aside from the pasta, Mancini said the service and kindness he has experienced and friends he’s made along the way have added to the journey.

“We think of Canada being especially friendly and that has certainly been true,” he said, adding that staff at every restaurant he has visited are invested in and support the Old Spaghetti Factory.

Mancini doesn’t need a menu when he sits down at an Old Spaghetti Factory table because he orders the same meal, pasta with marinara sauce, which started his quest over a decade ago.

“It kills all the managers and servers as you can imagine,” he said.

One of Mancini’s favourite locations to enjoy his marinara was in Banff, Alberta because of its mountainous views.

While Mancini has managed to check off every location on his list for now, he said his spaghetti quest will continue as the restaurant chain opens more locations.

“It’s fun to look back on all the memories, obviously good times with the food but even just the memories (and) trips along the way,” Mancini said.

“I kind of make a joke like, ‘yeah, what else is there to live for?’”

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