TRINIDAD • Pardon the silence. Frank Cordova is busy.

It’s hard to find time to sing between filling gaps in his staff, notably in the kitchen. The 78-year-old founder and owner of Rino’s Italian is cooking this night. He’s dashing from the back to the front to greet guests, dashing back and forth as if he’s still that long-haired, rock-n-roller in the black-and-white photos on the wall.

But finally, everyone served and happily feasting on heaping plates of pasta, Cordova takes a break to do what he does best. He grabs the mic, pumps up the volume.

“Where it began, I can’t begin to knowing …”

And soon, customers are on their feet, swaying side to side and clapping with the waiters, and kids are dancing with the old man, and everyone shouts it loud with him: “Sweeeet Caroliiine-buh-buh-buh-good tiiimes never seemed so good!”

For 20 years now, good times have rolled at Rino’s, “home of the famous singing waiters.”

The restaurant occupies an 1880s church building, enlivening a Main Street corner in this old mining town that tends to sleep in the offseason when Texans aren’t zipping through southern Colorado.

As for Cordova, it seems he never sleeps. He’s got his niece helping out, dashing around herself this night.

“I’m a workhorse, but my uncle can outrun me,” Kathee Adams says. “And he’s 78!”

Retire? “I don’t think it’s gonna happen,” says Patrick Valdez, lifelong friends with Cordova, going back to their teenage years in Trinidad. “He likes to be around people. He needs to entertain people.”

Retire? Cordova chuckles. “I’ll probably end up expiring instead.”

Fittingly, his cuisine has a kick to it, the signature flare of his native region. The green chile calamari is a favorite. The house boasts a special, spicy marinara, and jalepeño and chipotle heat up other pastas.

But mostly, it’s familiar classics up and down the menu, created by the French technique he learned in Las Vegas and the Italian tradition that is his core being. Mostly, Cordova likes to call his menu simple. “Simplicity,” he says, “is the key in anything you do.”

Simplicity. That’s what he sought after decades in big, shiny cities — benefiting the musical dreams he dreamed as a poor kid in tiny Trinidad, but benefiting not much else.

Cordova’s faded tattoos hint at a previous life, a fast life. “Love me or leave me,” reads one, and he takes blame for the women who came and went. That long-haired kid in the photos was living the dream with his band in Hollywood in the 1960s — a dream, he says, that was probably quashed by partying too much. “I hate to say it, we were getting into pot and all that stuff a little too much,” he says.

But since he came home to open Rino’s in 2002, he’s settled down. He’s married to an artist, whose work adorns the restaurant’s walls. One painting is of Cordova’s grandparents, who came from Italy to Trinidad during the coal boom.

Cordova was born in 1943, one of 14 children to Carmella Rino. The boy’s father was in and out.

“We had a tough life,” Cordova says.

He remembers sponge baths. Remembers heating water on the stove when the stove worked. Remembers covering holes in his shoes with cardboard. Remembers smelly clothes. Remembers lots of fights.

But the bleakness was broken by his mother’s voice. She’d sing at the piano, captivating the kids. “She was wonderful,” Cordova says. “She did her best.”

Hard work was also learned. That’s what Cordova turned to when music didn’t pan out in Hollywood. He turned to painting houses, cleaning carpets and waiting tables.

“I worked three jobs for 20 years,” he says. “I was lost.”

He was found by his also-musical brother, who had opened a club in Vegas. The concept: singing waiters. Cordova would sing and serve before bringing the concept home. He named Rino’s for his beloved mother.

“I was hoping to sit with her and talk with her,” he says. “She didn’t get to hear some of the Italian songs.”

She died just before the place was born. But her spirit lives here, embodied by her restless son.

The “Sweet Caroline” performance looked taxing. But no, Cordova has another in him.

“Fill my heart with song, and let me sing forevermore…”

On the menu

If green chile isn’t your thing, there’s the more standard, fried calamari, but with the sautéed twist of marinara, pepperoncinis and red onion. Other appetizers ($12-$14) include antipasto, shrimp sautéed with butter, garlic and white wine, and artichoke hearts tossed in that same mix.

Chicken Parmesan, chicken marsala and chicken Florentine are familiar favorites on that protein’s side ($20-$22). Chicken and eggplant cardinale combines the two with mozzarella, chili strip and wine sauce.

Pastas ($17-$25) served with salad. Penne rustica is a specialty — Italian sausage, red bell peppers, onions and mushrooms in spicy marinara. Another special is called Chico’s, bringing together chicken and shrimp with cream sauce, parmesan and feta over penne. The same stars on the shrimp and chicken sienna, with surprise chipotle seasoning in the marinara.

Spaghetti and meatballs, fettuccini alfredo, and linguini with mussels and clams are staples. Also: grilled salmon with white wine, lemon butter sauce, shallots, capers and chopped tomatoes ($21.95); Tilapia Di Val, a white fish sautéed with spinach, mushroom, tomato and jalapeno over pasta ($22.95); and mahi mahi, glazed with a mango habanero sauce ($19.95)

Steaks ($31) also popular, including filet mignon, rib-eye and New York strip. Served with veggies and choice of baked potato or pasta side.

Desserts ($7-$9): tiramisu, five-layer chocolate cake, New York cheesecake and spumoni.

At last check, 15 wines on the menu, with blends from Italy and California.