Interview with Vincent D’Onofrio Partner in Rib City Grill

Dining | Full Meaty Jacket: A barbecue lunch with actor, philanthropist and Rib City Grill partner Vincent D’Onofrio.
By Ted Scheffler

"A number of my friends and associates are big fans of Rib City restaurant in Sandy (and also American Fork). I, however, had never made the trek there until last week when I had the opportunity to interview Law & Order: Criminal Intent star Vincent D’Onofrio. His sister Toni Jorgensen and her husband Ron opened both of the Utah Rib City restaurants, and D’Onofrio is also involved. He was kind enough to take time out from important charity work to sit down with me for a quick lunch at the Sandy restaurant.

D’Onofrio and his Rib City “family” help raise donations for charities like Shop With a Cop (in which kids go shopping with police officers for Christmas at Kmart), Cops & Kids Sharing Christmas and The Fallen Officer Memorial Fund. D’Onofrio and his wife are involved in a number of charitable organizations but prefer to keep quiet about them—except, that is, for when meeting the public, signing autographs and posing for photos might help to generate a donation or two. D’Onofrio and his family are, as they say, good people. More than talking about his next movie or TV show, he was thrilled to tell me about the guy who walked up to him and the police chief of American Fork the night before and handed him a $700 donation.

“That’s going straight to the kids!” D’Onofrio says, excitedly. He can hardly contain his enthusiasm when he talks about how donations large and small might improve an underprivileged kid’s Christmas..."