With much of the focus centering, appropriately, on the pending retirement of “Chef Proprietor” Peppino Gargano, little attention had been paid to the possibility that Peppino’s Restaurant may still be sold to interested buyers from Chicago.
Gargano, who plans to retire by year’s end, has operated the Italian restaurant for 35 years, including the past 11 years at its Hamilton Street location on the Capitol Square.
The new restaurant, menu, and employees would be different in concept than Peppino’s, and the Gargano family intends to hold on to the recipes that helped define the restaurant. “There is a couple that is interested, but we don’t know at this point what’s going to happen,” Gargano confirmed. “I will retire either way. It’s a heart-breaking decision and to be honest with you, I don’t know how I’m going to feel about it when the time comes.”
Gargano, whose given name is Giuseppi, did not identify the prospective buyers at this time. When they conduct their due diligence on Peppino’s, the would-be owners will discover a longstanding Italian restaurant that has been praised as one of the nation’s 10 best by the New York Times, and one where Angela Gargano, Peppino’s daughter, believes many a local business deal was made over a plate of Veal Florentine.
In addition to classic Italian recipes, the prospective owners probably would not be able to replicate Gargano’s love of cooking and his outgoing persona. The first ingredient comes from his Sicilian mother — “a tremendous cook,” he fondly recalled — and the second allowed him to build friendships with customers. He has gotten to know most of them and, noting that his kitchen has a window to the restaurant, he made a habit of going out and saying goodnight to each one as they left, making a point to ask about their Peppino’s experience.
“I’m a fun guy,” he said, chuckling. “I love the people and my customers and the restaurant. For me, it’s a life made of work and fun.”
Gargano wanted to thank his customers by name in a newspaper advertisement, but thought the better of it because, “Chances are that you make someone unhappy because either you forgot them or misspelled their name.” Now he hopes they will come and see him at the restaurant one last time; if not, he’ll see them down the road because Madison is where he plans to spend his retirement.
“I think there is only one thing to say to them, and that is ‘thank you.’ I’ve had my ups and downs, but I am still here because my customers have been very faithful through the years. What else can I say?”
No Succession
Keeping the restaurant in the family was not a realistic option. Gargano has two sons that work at the restaurant, but the youngest, Frankie, is in high school and the oldest, Peter, attends Madison Area Technical College and has other pursuits in mind. His daughter Angela, who once handled the restaurant’s wine list and served as a hostess, has moved on to become a successful entrepreneur in her own right with the Bliss Flow Yoga and Wellness Center in Fitchburg.
Gargano, now 67, came to the United States from Sicily in 1965, following brothers Gino and Biagio, who had already become restaurant owners in Madison.
During its 35-year run, Peppino’s Restaurant has had three locations, starting on State Street for six years in a space above Gino’s, and later on University Avenue, where the restaurant served customers for 18 years.
Gargano still remembers the exact date — May 3, 1974 — he opened on State Street. “It was a Wednesday,” he recalled. “I didn’t want to open on the weekend.”
Angela Gargano described her father’s retirement as a happy occasion, one that is happening on her father’s terms, but Gargano has mixed feelings. He welcomes more opportunities to enjoy his favorite means of peaceful escape — reading books — and also cooking for some of his philanthropic interests, and perhaps using those family recipes to write a cookbook. However, he wonders what it will be like to walk away from something he has poured his heart and soul into.
If anyone wants to know what it takes to survive in the mercurial restaurant business, Gargano is a case study. While he has hired more help, including cooks, in recent years, he became accustomed to the stresses of creating and designing the menu, cooking the food (including an occasional wedding cake), putting together the wine list, keeping the books, and filing his own income taxes. Working “like a dog” is how he put it, but while he might gain more freedom in retirement, he also feels a sense of loss.
“As you get old, there comes a time when you’ve got to say, ‘It’s time to do something else,’” he related. “I’ve worked all my life, and I don’t know what a retired man does. In the morning, when you wake up, it’s always been easy because you’ve got to go to work. That the way it’s been for me since 1965.”
Angela Gargano has always been grateful for the simple, yet profound business lessons that her father passed on — including the reminder that there is no substitute for hard work. “We come from a long line of entrepreneurs, and it is always amazing to me how those lessons, passed down from generation to generation, don’t really change,” she noted. “There is no quick fix or easy way out in business.”
Classic Cuisine
Gargano already has outlived his father, a Sicilian businessman who died at age 55, and he is proud to have lasted so long in an industry where establishments — and popular tastes — come and go like pop music stars.
Along the way, Gargano has not only mingled with and befriended customers, he has been serenaded in Italian by a tenor from the Metropolitan Opera of Chicago, who took to Gargano and his cooking during a 1980 visit to Madison. The song, translated to English, is titled “You That Makes Me Cry.”
Gargano also enjoyed an enlightening conversation with journalist Charles Kuralt, who stopped by one night during a career of reporting on unique cultures and cuisines from coast to coast.
They weren’t the only strangers who dropped in. At one time, Peppino estimates that 15-20% of his customers came from Minneapolis and Chicago, a benefit of advertising in both cities and a long-time recommendation from Gourmet magazine.
Given his background, Gargano admits his tendency is to cook Sicilian style, but his menu has always been classic Italian, which has enjoyed real staying power amid fascination with Tex-Mex, Thai, and other cuisines. The better ones, he agreed, simply hang around and take up their own space.
“Italian cuisine has had a good run in this country for the past 100, 150 years,” he noted. “I remember that when I came to America, the tendency when talking about fine restaurants was pro-French, and then Italians started to go up in intensity with restaurants, and then Chinese.
“It’s an ever-evolving situation.”
One in which Peppino Gargano has stood the test of time.
