Angelo’s celebrates 80 years
Mark Marietta/For the Observer-Reporter
Michael Passalacqua, owner of the Italian restaurant in North Franklin Township, said on Angelo’s Facebook page Wednesday he will open for business at 11 a.m. Friday.
Mark Marietta
Mark Marietta/For the Observer-Reporter
Chef Kolt Eadie holds a fresh dish of linguini arrabbiata – hot sausage, red onions, mushrooms, spinach and romano cheese tossed with red pepper flakes in an oil and garlic sauce. Caution: It’s spicy hot.
Mark Marietta
Mark Marietta/For the Observer-Reporter
Angelo’s offers a rotating selection of gelato, or Italian ice cream, and gelato cakes. Gelato has less air and less butterfat than American ice cream.
It all started with a “little beer joint.”
Today, 80 years later, Angelo’s continues to dish up Giacomina Passalacqua’s spaghetti and meatballs, using the same recipe that helped put the little Italian restaurant on the map and kept generations of families coming back for seconds.
“I am in awe thinking about the number of people who worked here over the years who supported their family, paid taxes,” says grandson and third-generation owner Michael Passalacqua. “What one little business did to contribute to the tax base, if you will. And that doesn’t even take into account the customer side of it. I could never guess how many people we ever served. That could be a million people. Who knows? That’s crazy.”
It’s a week before Christmas, and the strain of the busy holiday season is showing on Michael’s face during our interview. But he’s eager to chat about his family and the business, and the stress melts away as the conversation turns to how Angelo’s came to be one of the region’s most popular destinations for traditional and modern Italian cuisine.
In 1939, Angelo Passalacqua and wife Giacomina opened a small neighborhood bar at 955 W. Chestnut St. in Washington’s West End. The interstates hadn’t been built yet, and Route 40 – the main thoroughfare between Washington and points west – passed right by their front door. Jessop Steel and Hazel Atlas Glass were thriving. The tavern quickly became a popular watering hole.
Giacomina would cook spaghetti for her husband in the little kitchen, and pretty soon, customers started asking for it, too.
“At that time we were just a little beer joint,” Michael’s father, Silvio Passalacqua, says in a telephone interview later. But that all changed when Wheeling Downs opened, says Silvio, who started working there just before his 21st birthday.
“We used to catch the guys going down (to the track) and coming back,” he adds. “That’s how the food business started. We couldn’t handle it at first, but little by little, we grew into it.”
Soon, The West Chestnut Spaghetti Inn was the place to go in Washington for good food and fellowship.
After Angelo’s death in 1953, Giacomina continued to operate the restaurant with her son and daughter, Carmelina, and their spouses, Patricia Passalacqua and Tony DeStefano. After Giacomina retired five years later, the name was changed to Angelo’s, and the restaurant was updated to accommodate more diners.
Today, Angelo and Giacomina Passalacqua’s legacy lives on at Angelo’s expanded location a mile away in North Franklin Township, not far from where Michael grew up.
Mark Marietta
Mark Marietta
The Angelo’s management team, clockwise from top left: Chef Kolt Eadie, Chef William Hart, floor manager Mike Vlainich, manager Dawn Calabro, owner Michael Passalacqua and administrative assistant/accountant Rhonda Shough
Change in plans
Michael reveals that he never planned to be involved in the family business. He was a police corporal at Kent State University in 1981 when his Aunt Carmelina retired, and his parents asked him and his sister Tonne to come home and help out.
“Rather reluctantly, I decided to do it. I really didn’t want to. For about two years, I wasn’t real happy,” he says, laughing. “I’ll never forget it. It was a hot summer day. I’d been hanging out with the boys. Five o’clock came, and I had to go home and change clothes and go to work. My dad made me wear a tie in those days. I was putting that tie on in that mirror, and that lip was hanging. And I just looked in the mirror, and I thought, ‘You might as well learn to like this ’cause nothing’s going to change anytime soon. So you better just get over it and fix it.’
“And I did. I made a mental change right then and there that I wasn’t going to cry about this anymore and make the most of the decision I had made. I can see my face in that mirror right now while we’re talking.”
He recalls the early days working alongside his father and Uncle Tony.
“They ran the restaurant from behind the bar,” Michael says. “They didn’t spend time on the dining room floor. That spurred some early confrontation between me and my dad. The guy that runs the restaurant shouldn’t be behind the bar. He should be in and out of the dining room and kitchen. Little by little, I turned him into changing things.”
In the meantime, sister Tonne focused on making changes to the menu, transforming it from old world Italian to more modern cuisine.
Mark Marietta
Mark Marietta/For the Observer-Reporter
The kitchen at Angelo’s Restaurant is bustling before 5 p.m. on a weekday.
“The menu was in need of an overhaul,” Tonne says during a phone interview from her home in Colorado Springs, Colo. “I saw that need, and just started delving into cookbooks and magazines. I was thrilled with the idea of being in business with my family and running the restaurant and just taking charge of the kitchen. We started cooking everything to order, which, in the beginning, was a fiasco. I had an idea of what I wanted to do, but getting there was through hard work and patient, loyal customers.”
She collaborated with another chef and the end result remains today: fresh food cooked to order.
“That’s why we have 18 burners back there – because we do so much in skillets. And that’s why you always see that big bunch of skillets hanging there,” Michael explains, pointing to the kitchen. “Half of what we do comes out of those skillets.”
Tonne, who graduated from Culinary Institute of America, eventually left Angelo’s to pursue other opportunities related to food service.
Michael’s twin, Michel, also worked at the restaurant, mostly during high school, doing stints as dishwasher, salad maker, hostess and cashier. While she chose not to stay there, she, too, still works in the food service industry in New Jersey and has fond memories of her days at Angelo’s.
“As kids we went there. We knew everybody, and they knew us. It was truly a family business,” she says.
Michael took over in 1992 when his parents retired after 42 years. In 2008, he moved the restaurant from West Chestnut to its current location at 2109 North Franklin Drive, atop the hill overlooking Washington Crown Center, nearly doubling its size and expanding amenities to include private party rooms as well as the now-extremely-popular dessert item, house-made gelato and gelato cakes.
While Michael is quick to point out that he is no chef – “or a cook, even” – but he knows Italian food and has no intention of making any changes to what contributed to the restaurant’s popularity. His grandmother’s sauce recipe remains virtually unchanged. What has changed, he notes, is technology.
“We are the perfect mix between modern and traditional. A lot of the more modern restaurants don’t have a lot of red sauce products. But no matter how fancy we get back there,” he says, gesturing to the kitchen, “spaghetti and meatballs are still the No. 1 item on the menu.”
Mark Marietta
Mark Marietta
Chef William Hart tosses a flaming pan of vodka sauce in Angelo’s kitchen.
Secret sauce
So, what’s the secret sauce behind Angelo’s success?
Silvio, now 89 and a North Franklin Township supervisor, places much of the credit with his son: “He insists on doing things right. He knows his business there. I’m very proud of how he brought us from our humble beginnings to where we are now. And I’m proud to be his dad.”
Michael’s sister, Tonne, says the community played a big role, too.
“We definitely weathered some storms along the way, and I think the basic premise is that the community is our longevity,” she says. “Michael serves the community, and the community serves him in return with their gratitude by continuing to support him.”
Michel attributes it to a strong work ethic.
“I think it came from how hard our parents worked, and our grandparents before us. There’s a lot of pride in the work that we all do, especially for my brother with his name on it representing my grandfather.”
Michael summed it up in two words: sincere intention.
“My grandfather, my father and me, we all had the drive to keep it going, you know? The diligence to put your head down and just keep on driving. My sincere intention is to keep my family’s work alive. Besides, if I didn’t, I wouldn’t have a job,” he adds with a grin.
Late last year, Angelo’s received the 2018 Charles C. Keller Excellence Award for Corporate Philanthropy, recognized for its generosity and community service. Michael began providing spaghetti dinners for community fundraisers about seven years ago, helping to raise money for families in need.
“Something just tugs at me, and I can afford to do it,” he says. “I’d rather spend that money doing goodwill stuff than putting up a billboard or something like that. It helps our reputation and keeps us in the conversation, but that’s just the sidebar. I’d do it without any of that.”