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A BRIEF HISTORY
Our Great-Grandfather Vincenzo (James) Agatucci immigrated to the
United States from Calascio (AQ) Italy in 1904 with a dream. After
many years of hard work on the coal mining circuit between
Pennsylvania and Central Illinois, James moved to Peoria along
with his wife Teresa and their seven children to open a small “mom
and pop” grocery store on Second Street in the early 1920’s. In 1926,
he took a chance and purchased our current building on a dirt
road which to our knowledge was the furthest point North in the
City of Peoria.
During the early days of the Great Depression, he turned his beloved grocery store
into a family run restaurant to better serve the community. Following the end of prohibition
in 1933, he purchased liquor license #13 which became very lucky for our family as we
now possess the oldest continually owned liquor license in Peoria. Another daughter joined
the family and soon thereafter Great-Grandfather Jim retired in 1948. He passed the
business to his sons Frank and Nick who introduced pizza to the Peoria area in order to
satisfy the craving of soldiers returning from war service in Italy.
Following a successful venture into the frozen pizza and spaghetti sauce market by
brothers Jim and Jerry in the late 1960’s/early 1970’s, they took over the restaurant when
their father Frank “officially” retired in 1979. Many claim that Jim and Jerry operated the
restaurant in perfect ying and yang harmony! In 1988, they expanded the restaurant to
include the “new room” for greater seating capacity.
As we enter our 10th decade of operations, we look foward to serving you with the
principles that we have learned through the years: 1.) Take pride and work to offer a high
quality and consistent product at a fair price and 2.) Flour is much easier to handle than
coal dust!
We sincerely thank you for your continued support. You are the reason our history
endures. Please let us know if there is anything we can do to make your visits with us
more enjoyable.
~Danny and Tony Agatucci