Tradition brings success

Store celebrates 100 years with a mixture of tradition and new ideas.

By DON SHILLING

VINDICATOR BUSINESS EDITVOR

BOARDMAN — Joseph Lariccia started a small grocery store in 1907 to provide pasta and olives for Italian immigrants.

One hundred years later, his granddaughter, Tessa Allegretto, offers descendants of those immigrants the same foods as they try to keep the Old Word traditions alive.

Only now, Lariccia’s Italian Marketplace offers a lot more help for the harried customers of the 21st century. For example, it cleans the fish served in the traditional Christmas Eve meal and bakes special pies and bread for Easter.

Or the store can offer a complete meal if the shopper prefers. LaRiccia’s catering service is the fastest-growing part of the business. Dishes include pasta, chicken dinners, homemade rolls and desserts.

“We’re using the recipes of my great-grandparents,” Allegretto said.

Many people aren’t using their own family recipes, but that doesn’t mean that ethic traditions aren’t important to them, she said.

“It’s not that the ideas and traditions are lost,” Allegretto said. “People just don’t have the means and time to do that anymore.”

The store continues to offer a variety of items for Italian dishes that are cooked at home, including imported pasta, peppers and olives.

Though Lariccia’s is focused on traditional Italian cooking, no business can survive 100 years without adapting.

The store’s biggest change came five years ago when Allegretto and her husband, Mike, moved the store from Midlothian Boulevard to 7438 Southern Blvd. Her father, Michael, had operated the store on Midlothian for more than 35 years. His father had started the store on East Federal Street downtown.

The couple knew that many of their customers had moved to the suburbs, so they accepted a purchase offer from McDonald’s, which was building a new restaurant.

The old grocery store had dim lighting and tightly packed aisles. The new store features ceramic tile on the floors, wide aisles and plenty of natural light spilling in from the large, front windows.

Mike Allegretto said business has been good for the past five years because the store has identified its niche and stuck to it. Shoppers have other alternatives if they are looking for the lowest prices in town, he said. LaRiccia’s tries to combine high-quality products, such as Boar’s Head lunch meats, with homemade products, such as its meatball mix.

“The people who come here really appreciate that,” he said.

His wife said she’s recently started two new offerings that are doing well — birthday parties and something she calls Cookies and Milk.

She and her mother, Edith Lariccia, developed cookie recipes, and the treats are baked fresh and delivered hot to people for birthdays, bereavement luncheons or when babies are brought home from the hospital.

“Who doesn’t like cookies and milk?” she asked.

She started coordinating birthday parties at the store two years ago when her daughter, Giana, was turning 6. Giana asked if she could have the party at the store, and the children had so much fun that her mother began offering parties where children could make cupcakes, lasagna or pizza.

The store has 15 full- and part-time employees and some family members who help out, including her eldest daughter, Alyvia, 15. Tessa Allegretto’s uncle, Junie Gianfrancesco, has been working at the store for longer than she has — 40 years.

Her mother helps out two days a week and also watches her two daughters after school.

“She’s a huge help. My mom’s the one who knows all these recipes,” Allegretto said.

She has two sisters, Lesa and Gina Lariccia, who live in the area and help out at the store on holidays.

Their father died when Tessa was 17 and she immediately began helping her mother and others run the store. Allegretto, 42, said she never had a doubt as a young girl that she would take over the business one day.

“When I had a day off school, I went to work with my dad. When I had a snow day, I went to work with my dad,” she said.

Now, she and her husband have ushered the business to its centennial celebration and are looking toward the future. Tessa thinks that perhaps her daughters will take over the store someday.

“I’m sure Tess’ father is proud,” her husband said. “And his father is proud, too.”

shilling@vindy.com