Walk through the front door of Gaetano's and you take a step back in time. It is somewhere in the early 1960s at this North Denver pasta institution.

From the plush-but-smoky bar to the classical nude goddess painting in the back room, the scenic Italy photos and the Frank Sinatra shrine, Gaetano's exudes the old-fashioned Italian-American ambience I grew up with on the East Coast. It's the sort of red-sauce realism that the flock of current "Italian family-style" chain eateries tries so hard to clone.

The menu is equally historical, from the minestrone, spaghetti, chianti and lasagna to the meatball sandwich, veal Marsala, pizza and spumoni.

When we stop in for a weekday lunch, the place is packed with locals and downtown business folks. Specials (with soup or salad) include homemade thick-cut and chewy pasta ($6.95), big rigatoni tubes ($6.75) and mostaccioli ($6.75). All come with thin red sauce and big herby meatball. My favorites are the tender ricotta-filled ravioli ($6.95) with Italian link sausage and the stellar lasagna ($8.25) with thick layers of cheese, ground meat and sauce.

For starters, we polish off an order of fried calamari ($6.95), thick tender rings with a light coating that we dip in marinara sauce.

The midday menu also boasts some less expected specialties, such as the juicy Chauncey Burger ($6.75), grilled ground beef crowned with roasted green peppers, red sauce and melted cheese and served with fries or pasta. It's messy but good.

Other lunchable items include Italian roast beef ($6.75) with peppers and cheese, Cuban sandwich with ham, roast beef and cheese ($7.50), calzones filled with sausage or meatball ($5.25) and Tasty Treats ($2.25 each, $21 for 12). This Italian version of the corn dog has sausage and a roasted chile strip wrapped in the house pizza dough and baked. Dip that in sauce and powder it with Parmesan and you see that the name is accurate.

A lounge singer backed by a tape machine is working the back room when we come back for a Saturday night family dinner. He croons songs we know the words to, like That's Amore, New York, New York and My Way. A framed portrait hanging behind the bar depicts the three Franks: Frank Sinatra as bobbysoxer idol, as '60s Rat Packer and as elder statesman of song.

I bring along my mom, Rose, and her visiting sister, my Aunt Josie. These first-generation daughters of off-the-boat Sicilians who settled in central Connecticut have seen some eggplant Parmesan and lasagna in their time.

We immediately develop a crush on the peppers fritti ($4.75). Whole mild or hot green peppers are deep-fried and served dressed in olive oil and herbs. We choose the hot peppers - peeling off the singed skin, seeds and stem - and eating the "meat" in a piece of buttered bread. That's amore. Spicy but not agonizing, this simple food is a hot appetizer.

"The bread's good," says Josie, authenticating the soft, spongy slices that arrive at each table in a tied plastic bag in a basket with butter pats. We are less excited about the bland, overcooked minestrone soup and the mushy, underbaked stuffed mushrooms ($7.25).

You also can start with garlic bread ($2.25) or sliced tomatoes, anchovies and capers ($6.75). The antipasto ($8.95) is a mound of sliced olives, pickled cherry peppers, rolled-up slices of provolone and salami, pepperoni slices, and best of all: salty lupini beans.

The entree list boasts some faves and some flops. One of the best is pollo Alfredo ($14.95), herb bread-stuffed chicken breast draped in a fine, creamy Alfredo sauce. We also like the veal Marsala ($17.95), swimming in an excellent mushroom-jammed sauce. However, the veal is neither tender nor plentiful enough. My braciole ($14.95) is just pounded-thin beef wrapped around sausage with red sauce. It lacks the subtle layers of herbs and other ingredients that define the dish.

We sample several of the dinner pasta entrees including rigatoni ($9.25) and spaghetti ($7.95). The pasta itself is cooked right and the sausage is decent but honestly, the house red sauce is too thin and too sweet. Regulars would riot if Gaetano's stopped serving the sauce, but maybe the kitchen could add a second, fresher sauce with more herbs, more tomato puree and less tomato paste.

Spaghetti with clam sauce ($14.95) comes three ways: with the house red sauce, white Alfredo sauce and "aglio olio" or "garlic and oil." My wife chooses garlic and oil, but it arrives so salty it is inedible. The management is gracious and apologetic in replacing the dish quickly with a fresh plate with a memorable flavor.

The wine list is limited and antique in its own way. The best choice is the nice house chianti or a cocktail from the bar.

Other entrees include cheese- and meat-filled manicotti ($11.75), three veal variations - scaloppine ($17.95), piccata ($17.95) and Parmagiana ($17.95) - and similar chicken preparations plus garlicky chicken scampi ($14.95). The "Americana" entrees range from deep-fried shrimp ($13.95) to "hamburger steak" ($10.75).

Dessert at Gaetano's is limited to the classic spumoni ($2.75). This is a topnotch combination of chocolate, vanilla and pistachio ice creams loaded with nuts and candied fruit bits.

It's worth visiting Gaetano's just for the fine hand-tossed pizzas. Paul Michael's Terrorizer Stuffed Pizza provides a lasagnalike effect with a spinach ricotta layer between two thin layers of dough. Top it with the old-fashioned combo ($14.75), which features chopped fresh tomatoes, garlic, oil, basil and grated romano cheese. It's an aromatic experience with gusts of herby garlic filling the air. The hot oven crisps, dries, roasts, chars and otherwise sweetens the top layer of tomatoes. This is a real tomato pie - sans the molten mozzarella - with a thick pizza sauce and bready crust with golden brown edges.

Gaetano's is a nice family restaurant where kids are treated well and the service is suitably quick and efficient, but, frankly, a little worn around the edges. You would be, too, if you'd been serving pasta since 1935.